1740 ca, PARIS, FRANCE: The french writer and explorer Chevalier JEAN CHARDIN (1643-1713). Portrat engraved, XIX century.Born Jean-Baptiste Chardin and also known as Sir John Chardin, was a French jeweller and traveler whose ten-volume book" The Travels of Sir John Chardin" is regarded as one of the finest works of early Western scholarship on Persia and the Near East in general