China - Red marquin - Lot 609

China - Red marquin KIRCHER (Athanase) La Chine illustrée de plusieurs Monuments tant Sacrés que Profanes, et de quantité de Recherches de la nature et de l'art à quoy on a adjousté de nouveau les questions curieuses que le Sérénissime Grand Duc de Toscane a depuis peu fait au P. Jean Grubère touchant ce grand Empire. Avec un Dictionnaire chinois & françois, qui est très rare, & qui n'a pas encore paru ce jour. Translated by F. S. Dalquié;Amsterdam, Jansson à héritiers Weyerstraet, 1670. In folio: 8f. (including frontispiece), illustrated with 23 plates, 3 of which are double-page fold-outs (including a map of the Chinese Empire and one of Asia) and half-page figures. Occasional spotting, some leaves slightly browned. Rebound in red morocco with the arms of the Bignon library, ornate ribbed spine, brown titles, BB of the Bignon library between compartments, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, gilt cartouche in the center of the boards with "Bibliothec Bignon", in the center of an arabesque forming two eagles facing each other and surmounted by a radiant sun, gilt roulette on the edges, wide inner lace, later endpapers. Kircher, a 17th-century German Jesuit, published some forty works, notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology and medicine. This volume represents Kircher's interest in sinology, with a comprehensive account of China based on Jesuit sources of the time. The book contains a small dictionary, as well as descriptions and illustrations of various customs, religions, rituals, flora and fauna, clothing styles... First French edition.