gems, diamond, India, diamond mines, Golconda, Tavernier

Simon de Vries’s Curieuse aenmerckingen der bysonderste Oost en West-Indische verwonderens-waerdige dingen is a four-volume compilation of seventeenth-century European knowledge concerning the East and West Indies, China, Africa, and other parts of the world. Drawing on numerous earlier travel accounts and purported eyewitness reports, De Vries arranges and compares information on geography, mountains and mines, plants, seas and rivers, peoples, religions, customs, government, law, medicine, arts, crafts, warfare, court ceremony, divination, and other subjects. The later volumes devote substantial attention to religious practices and idols, marriage and domestic life, education, feasting, law and punishment, medicine, philosophy, writing, time-reckoning, navigation, crafts, royal courts, military affairs, and ceremonial life. The work is extensively illustrated with engraved composite plates depicting scenes described in the text, including mines, craftsmen, merchants, religious ceremonies, rulers and courts. Of particular gemological interest are its descriptions and illustrations relating to Indian diamonds, including their extraction, testing, cutting and trade, together with scenes connected with Golconda and the Mughal court. Although derivative rather than an original travel narrative, the set is valuable as a broad synthesis of European perceptions of the non-European world in the late seventeenth century and as a richly illustrated source for contemporary accounts of mining, luxury materials, commerce, and material culture.