Maggs Bros. Ltd.

An important early "introduction to Chinese methods of indicating time, the cycles, etc. with parallel terms in other Eastern languages" (Lust).

During the Qing dynasty the Chinese used the Chongzhen calendar which had been developed by two Jesuits Schall von Bell, Johannes Schreck, and the convert Xu Guangqi. Time was a fluid concept in China where the day was divided between sunrise and sunset, which meant that the hours were longer in the summer and shorter in the winter. Each day was divided into 12 hours which were named after the earthly branches, each roughly 120minutes long with a variation of 20% between summer and winter. Accounting for the difference each week was challenging.

Bayer (1694-1738) was born in Königsberg in East Prussia before moving to St. Petersburg where he joined the Academy of Sciences. He was also a pioneering scholar of Chinese studies and kept a regular correspondence with the Jesuits in Peking. Plates I-VI show some Chinese time-keeping devices and provide a list of the 12 earthly branches together with their meaning and time variation. Plate VII & VIII list the names of the animals in the Chinese zodiak in Kalmyk, Mongolian, Manchu, and Tibetan.

Rare.