EKEBERG (Carl Gustav).
Ostindiska Resa, åren 1770 och 1771.
Originally training as a chemist and physician, Ekeberg (1716-1784) rose rapidly within the ranks of the admiralty of the Swedish East India Company. Between 1742 and 1777, he participated in twelve voyages to China, five of them as captain, simultaneously playing the roles of mariner, merchant, diarist, naturalist, and draftsman. He was a close friend of Linnaeus for whom he collected natural history specimens. The present work was published as a series of letters addressed to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences of which he was a Fellow. It is beautifully illustrated with engraved plates after sketches done by Ekeberg himself, and includes a view of the Bocca Tigris, the Whampoa anchorage, as well as the waterfront of Canton. This appears to be the first time that this particular combination of views on the Pearl River was shown and it established a pattern well into the middle of the 19th century. Only three copies in OCLC. Not in Lust; not in Cordier; not in China Illustrata.
