Description de la Chine, part of Prevost's monumental 'l'Histoire General des Voyages' The plate depicts a low terraced building, upon the roof of which are various monumental astronomical tools. These are labelled and described in a lettered key at the top of the plate in French and Dutch. Among the instruments are a zodiacal sphere, a celestial globe, a sextant, a quadrant, an equinoctial sphere, and an azimuth marker. The subtitle to the plate attributes the illustration to the description of Louis le Comte (1655-1728), a Jesuit missionary who travelled to China in the 1687 mission led by the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Jean de Fontaney. Le Comte produced a memoir of his journey, which was published in Paris in 1696. le Comte had a particular interest in the celestial knowledge of the Chinese, as well as their various religious and philosophical practices, and his memoirs were a major source for the debate in the Roman Catholic church over whether or not Confucianism was compatible with Christian belief.

The Histoire General des Voyages was a monumental eighteenth century general history divided according to geographic region. The original volumes were written by Antoine François Prevost d'Exiles, a French author, novelist, theologian, natural historian, and a priest of the Jesuit and Benedictine orders, but continued by numerous other authors after Prevost's death. The earliest books mostly deal with the Far East and South-East Asia, providing a general history of their regions, kingdoms, customs, culture, costumes, natural phenomena and religious beliefs. Much of Prevost's information is derived from the reports of Jesuit missionaries, Portuguese merchants, and famous explorers, from Marco Polo to Sir Francis Drake. Although written in French, the popularity of the Histoire among Dutch audiences meant that many of the illustrative plates and maps published to accompany the work were either re-engraved or subtitled in Dutch by the engraver Jakob van der Schley. Prevost himself had travelled widely throughout the Netherlands, launching his literary career in Amsterdam and the Hague after fleeing the Benedictines in France. Prevost's work on China, and indeed many of van der Schley's plates, owe a great debt to Johan Nieuhoff (1618-1672) , a Dutch traveller who explored much of China, India, and Brazil while in the employ of the Dutch East India Company. Nieuhoff wrote extensively, with a particular focus on China, for his memoirs, and his numerous drawings of Chinese places and people were much copied by later engravers for numerous works of Chinese interest. Nieuhoffs own book became a major source of inspiration for eighteenth century chinoiserie, and are amongst the first western illustrations to depict the Chinese people in a manner which was based upon personal observation rather than the tradition of oriental fantasy.--Sanders description.

Cf. Golvers, Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) and the Chinese Heaven, p. 336.
Dig. image [Schley Observatory 1749]