This album of 36 views of Jehol comes from the Barberini Library, bound in a volume containing three Chinese fly leaves at the beginning and three at the end. The main body of the album consists of 36 views in copperplate engravings printed on Western paper, each sheet measuring 29.2 x 32.5cm (with an image frame of 27.2 x 30cm), is folded in the middle, and bound to a yellow silk cover. Each volume measures 31 x 17.4cm and features butterfly binding. Matteo Ripa was sent to China by Propaganda Fide in the context of the 'Chinese Rites Controversy'. Between 1711 and 1723, he worked as engraver to the Kangxi Emperor in Beijing, making for him copper engravings of 36 views of the Jehol summer resort. Thus, he introduced the European copper engraving technique into China. Ripa presented to Kangxi 70 copies of the printings, and perhaps he kept 30 copies for his personal use. He sent these albums as gifts to his relatives, to important people in the Church or States in Naples, England and France. During a visit to London in 1724, returning to Europe from China, he reportedly introduced a copy showing Kangxi's summer resort to Lord Burlington and his circle, including the landscape designer William Kent (1685-1748), who then introduced a new style of landscape gardening in England which was known throughout Europe as 'Jardin Anglo-Chinois'. The Vatican copy of the album is the second one that Ripa sent from China to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, his protector in Rome, after he had failed to send the first one. Numerous letters between Matteo Ripa and Barberini are preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Library, in which Ripa reports important affairs regarding the Chinese mission in general, and this album in specific. The following 13 pictures were selected from this Ripa's album.

Reference:

^[1]. YU D.C. (2013). Il Barb. Or. 147 e la corrispondenza tra Matteo Ripa e Francesco Barberini iunior. In Studi in onore del cardinale Raffaele Farina, II, Città del Vaticano (Studi e testi, 478), pp. 1321-1363.

^[2]. RIPA, M. (1996). Giornale (1705-1724), introduzione, testo critico e note di Michele Fatica, vol. II (1711-1716), tav. I-XXXVI. Napoli.