CHINE - XVIe siècle

Two rare Yongle Dadian (The Great Canon of the Yongle Era) albums, black and red ink on paper, one volume dedicated to the geography of China's lakes, the other describes funeral rites. 8 128 000 € incl. VAT (Result with expenses) Volume number: 2268/2269 ; 7391/7392. Dimensions: 50,5 x 30 cm (Wear, stains and accidents). Yongle Dadian is the largest encyclopedia in the world, more than 2000 scholars worked under the direction of Emperor Yongle between 1404 and 1408. It originally consisted of 22877 handwritten volumes, composed of about 370 million characters. Emperor Jiajing ordered two copies of the entire encyclopedia to be made from August 1562. The original was lost during the Ming Dynasty due to numerous wars, thefts and fires. These two copies are among the only 400 volumes known in the world today, which is only 4% of the total original Yongle encyclopedia.