ABSTRACT
China is a ‘noble diamond, sparking divinely in the eye’, according to Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679). 1 The Dutch ‘Prince of Poets’ was not alone in esteeming the Middle Kingdom so highly. Not only was Amsterdam a staple market of Chinese goods and works of applied art. Various efforts of early European scholarship on China were products of the Netherlands as well. The earliest illustrated books, printing types, discussions of Chinese history, and editions of Confucius originated in the Low Countries. We may call this the ‘proto-sinology’ of the seventeenth century, as Chinese studies became an academic discipline only in 1876 when a chair was established at Leiden’s university, followed by Louvain in 1884. 2
