Isaac Titsingh

Illustration depicting the last European delegation to be received at the Qianlong Emperor's court in 1795. Isaac Titsingh seated on the far left of the picture (wearing a hat) and Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest seated to his right.

Isaac Titsingh FRS (c. January 1745 – 2 February 1812) was a Dutch diplomat, historian, Japanologist, and merchant.[1] During a long career in East Asia, Titsingh was a senior official of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC)). He represented the European trading company in exclusive official contact with Tokugawa Japan, traveling to Edo twice for audiences with the shogun and other high bakufu officials. He was the Dutch and VOC governor general in Chinsura, Bengal.[2]

Titsingh worked with his counterpart, Charles Cornwallis, who was governor general of the British East India Company. In 1795, Titsingh represented Dutch and VOC interests in China, where his reception at the court of the Qing Qianlong Emperor stood in contrast to the rebuff suffered by British diplomat George Macartney's mission in 1793, just prior to celebrations of Qianlong's sixty-year reign. In China, Titsingh effectively functioned as ambassador for his country at the same time as he represented the Dutch East India Company as a trade representative.[1]

  1. ^ a b Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Isaak Titsingh" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 966, p. 966, at Google Books.
  2. ^ Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (NY: Knopf, 2018), 166-73. ISBN 9780307961730