Johan Nieuhof
Johan Nieuhof or Joan Nieuhoff ( born July 22, 1618 Uelsen, † October 8, 1672 in Madagascar ) was a Dutch globetrotter.
Nieuhof as a globetrotter
His father was a native of Zwolle Mayor of Uelsen in the county of Bentheim. Since Nieuhof in 1640 was as an ensign in the service of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil, he spent his life outside Europe. He traveled in the service of the East India Company and as a private citizen to India, Sri Lanka, China and Indonesia. Only twice, in 1658 and 1671, he returned to brief family visits back to the Netherlands.
Nieuhof in Brazil
Nieuhof stayed from 1640 to 1649 in Brazil. It was the time when the Dutch West India Company tried to remove the Portuguese trading posts. Unlike in Indonesia succeeded the Portuguese, to make initial successes of the Dutch again dropping, and Brazil to keep to yourself.
Nieuhof in China
Nieuhof got to China as a member of the Dutch delegation to the imperial court in Beijing know ( 1655-1657 ). The long journey from Canton to Peking, on land and water, is the subject of the first part of Nieuhofs China report. The second part of Nieuhofs China book is devoted to a systematic description of " land and people " as well as the history of the country.
Nieuhofs China - book " Het Gezandtschap the Neêrlandtsche Oost -Indische Compagnie, aan den Grooten Tartar Cham, the tegenwoordigen Keizer van China" ( German: " The embassy of the Dutch East India Company to the great Tartar Khan, the current Emperor of China") a was Bestsellers, although it was quite expensive due to the numerous engravings. As the book was enthusiastically taken up by the European readership, illustrate the many editions - five Dutch (1665, 1669, 1670, 1680 and 1693 ), three German (1666, 1669 and 1675), two English ( 1669 and 1673 ), a French ( 1665) and a Latin (1668 ), and another Dutch ( 1666).
Two reasons may the former popularity of the book explain: There was the hitherto most comprehensive representation of China, where there are both based on our own observations Nieuhofs well as the most important and Jesuit sources of the time. In addition, mediated the 150 copper engravings the European readers the hitherto most realistic visual image of China.
Nieuhof in India
Beginning of the 1660s came Nieuhof to India. He belonged to the army of the East India Company, which decreased the Portuguese a number of trading cities on the southern coast of India.
From 1663 to 1666 he was then director of the Compagnie - settlements on the Malabar Coast. But then it came to disputes with the Governor-General in Batavia. Only Nieuhof was transferred to Sri Lanka, 1667, he retired from the service of the company from.
Nieuhofs experiences in India and Indonesia appeared in their own work that the work on " West Indies " (Brazil ) was tied together in a band. As a source Nieuhofs Reports on India and Indonesia are all the more valuable because he knew many of the areas described from my own experience and in these cases did not have to resort to older literature. Johan Nieuhof delivered one of the best depictions of the Old Batavia, where he lived as a private citizen from 1667 to 1670.
1672 anchored the ship, off Madagascar on which he went to Batavia. Together with a landing party Nieuhof went ashore to search for drinking water, and remained missing with his companions.
Due to its wanderlust Joan Nieuhof never had the time to write a book. So his three works have been elaborated on the basis of his notes by his brother Hendrik and edited.
This 150 stitches were at the origin of chinoiserie. Artists and architects like Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach were inspired by these stitches. Found the stitches again until 1984. They found in the collection of the anthropologist Roland Bonaparte ( 1858-1924 ). He had collected on Madagascar, but also about Lapland and the American Indians.