Mélanges sur la Chine. 1er Volume. Lettres Illustrées Sur Une École Chinoise de Saint-Luc, Auxiliaire de la Propagation de la Foi.An Album of T'ou-se-we Woodblock Prints for Missionary Work and the Dissemination of Faith

作者(Author)：Adolphe Vasseur

出版社(Publisher)：Impr. des orphelins-apprentis (Paris-Auteuil)

出版時間(Publishing Date)：1884

頁數(Pages)：viii, 191 

裝幀(Binding)：Hardcover

品相(Condition)：Good

尺寸(Size)：33.5x26.5cm

Mélanges sur la Chine. 1er Volume. Lettres Illustrées Sur Une École Chinoise de Saint-Luc, Auxiliaire de la Propagation de la Foi. 33.5*26.5cm, In-fol., VIII-191. Original cover, spine reinforced with tape. Adolphe Henri Vasseur (1828 1899), known in China as Fan Shixi, was a French Jesuit priest, artist, and missionary. He arrived in China in 1865 and spent several years at T ou-se-we (Tushanwan), a Jesuit orphanage and arts workshop in Shanghai s Xuijiahui (Zi-ka-wei). There, he played a pivotal role in developing religious woodblock prints, which were widely used across China, Japan, India, the Philippines, and the Americas for evangelization and church decoration. In 1884, Vasseur published a book titled Mélanges sur la Chine, which includes a list of his work produced at T ou-se-we and an explanation of the process of producing the pictures. He first drew the images and then asked the students to carve them onto woodblocks and make prints, and finally color the prints. It took him three years to complete the 167 images on the list. He managed to publish six picture books and 120 types of prints for families and churches with different forms and sizes. The six books written in Chinese were published at T ou-se-we in 1869 (although some of them have Jinling, i.e. Nanjing, as their place of publication on their cover pages). They are (1) Complete Images of the Life of the Savior), (2) Complete Images of Catechism and the Lord (Shengjiao shengxiang quantu), (3) Images of Fifteen Mysteries of Holy Rosary (Meiguijing tuxiang shiwuduan), (4) Complete Imagines of the Events before the Arrival of the Savior (Jiushizhu yuxiang quantu), (5) Images of the Life of Holy Apostles (Zhusheng zongtu xingshi shenxiang), and (6) Complete Images and Explanations of Six Mysteries of Faith (Jiaoyao liuduan quantu. These six picture books and various prints were introduced into Japan too, and examples of each picture book are held by various universities and religious institutions in Japan.