Jean Chardin
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Sir John Chardin FRS |
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| Born |
Jean-Baptiste Chardin 16 November 1643 Paris, France |
| Died | 5 January 1713 (aged 69) Chiswick, London, UK |
| Nationality | French and British |
Jean Chardin (16 November 1643 – 5 January 1713), born Jean-Baptiste Chardin, and also known as Sir John Chardin, was a French jeweller and traveler whose ten-volume book The Travels of Sir John Chardin is regarded as one of the finest works of early Western scholarship on Persia and the Near East in general.
He was born in Paris, son of a wealthy merchant, jeweller of the Place Dauphine, and followed his father's business. In 1664, he started for the East Indies with M. Raisin, a Lyons merchant. They journeyed by Constantinople and the Black Sea, reaching Persia early in 1666. The same year the shah, Abbas II, made Chardin his agent for the purchase of jewels. In the middle of 1667, he visited India and returned to Persia in 1669. The next year he arrived in Paris. He issued an account of some events to which he was an eye-witness in Persia, entitled ‘Le Couronnement de Soleiman Troisième,' Paris, 1671. A learned nobleman, Mirza Sefi, a prisoner in his own palace at Ispahan, had entertained him, instructed him in the Persian language, and assisted him in this work. Peter de la Croix and Tavernier severely criticised it, while Ange de la Brosse as strongly defended it.
Chardin again started for the East, August 1671. He was at Constantinople from March to July 1672. A quarrel between the grand vizier and the French ambassador made the position of French subjects dangerous, and Chardin escaped in a small vessel across the Black Sea, and made a most adventurous journey by Caffa, and through Georgia, and Armenia to Ispahan, which he reached in 1673. At Sapias, he was robbed by the Mingrelians of all he possessed except two small bundles, worth £6,000. He stayed at Ispahan four years, following the court in all its removals, and making particular journeys throughout the land, from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf and the river Indus, and visiting several Indian cities. By these two journeys he realised a considerable fortune, and, deciding to return home, reached Europe in 1677 by a voyage round the Cape of Good Hope.
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