L'ambassade de la Compagnie orientale des Provinces Unies vers l'empereur de la Chine, ou grand cam de Tartarie, faite par les Srs. Pierre de Goyer, & Jacob de Keyser
Johannes Nieuhof's 1665 account of the Dutch East India Company embassy to the Chinese emperor, published in Leiden, records the Dutch mission's travels through China in engraved views of cities and river ports. The four plates show Chinese towns along rivers and coasts, with pagodas, walled settlements, junks and a crowded harbour of European-rigged ships, drawn in fine engraved line with dense cloud skies. A designer could take from them the tonal sky and crosshatched shading of seventeenth-century topographic engraving, and the rigging and boat silhouettes that read clearly at small sizes.
