ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the versions of Qing imperial images in France in the eighteenth century and the texts associated with them and then to highlight some of the questions that they raise. Theodore Royer was a lawyer, an antiquarian, a print collector, a member of various learned societies, and a sinologist, which was a rarity in the Netherlands in his time. The other album, in the Bibliotheque nationale de France, comes from the collection of Henri Bertin. The circulation of knowledge of the Yuanmingyuan is part of a broader encounter between France and China and is the result of a purposeful acquisition of knowledge. In eighteenth-century France, the Yuanmingyuan was surprisingly well-known, at least within a small circle of people eager for knowledge of the far-off empire of China. In 1738, the Qianlong emperor commissioned an album of paintings entitled the "40 Views of the Yuanmingyuan".
