China has fuelled the imaginations of Europeans for more than a thousand years. Attracted by legends ans fragmentary tales that circulated about this totally unknown far-away country, and later by the exotic products that arrived in the West via the Silk Road, many Western travellers, from the Middle Ages onward, set out for China: Jean de Plan Carpin (from 1245 to 1246), Guillaume de Rubroeck (from 1253 to 1255), Marco Polo (from 1275 to 1290), Odoric de Pordenone (1323-1328), Matteo Ricci (from 1582 to 1610), Ferdinand Verbiest (from 1656 to 1688) and Lord Marcartney (from 1792 to 1794).
This exhibition will introduce us to extraordinary travellers' tales, often illustrated with engravings, such as the book of Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1667) or accompanied by fine watercolours, such as one of William Alexander (1805) and a fascinating collection of old original photographs.
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