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Jean Chardin (16 November 1643 – 5 January 1713), born Jean-Baptiste Chardin, and also known as Sir John Chardin, was a French jeweller and traveller 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 fathers 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.
He was born in Paris, son of a wealthy merchant, jeweller of the Place Dauphine, and followed his fathers 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.
