Tavernier, JEAN BAPTISTE, BARON D'AUBONNE, a celebrated French traveller, was the son of an Antwerp Protestant engraver who had settled in Paris, and was born there in 1605. The conversation of the savants who frequented his father's shop made him a traveller at fifteen, and by the age of twenty-two he had seen France, England, the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. His first journey to the East lasted from about the beginning of 1631 to the summer of 1633, by Constantinople to Persia, thence by Aleppo and Malta to Italy. The second journey (1633-43) was from Marseilles to Alexandretta, across Syria to Isphahan, thence to Dacca, Agra, Surat, Goa, and Golconda; the third (1643-49), through Isphahan, much of Hindustan, Batavia, and Bantam, whence to Holland by the Cape and St Helena; and in the fourth (1651-55), fifth (1657-62), and sixth (1663-68) many districts of Persia and India were visited, the outward route being generally by way of Syria and the Arabian Desert, and the return one by Asia Minor. Tavernier invariably travelled as a dealer in precious stones and other valuable articles of small bulk, and the great profits he realised strongly impressed upon him the advantages of regular commerce between Europe and the East. He was well received by most of the eastern potentates—the Shah Abbās II. in 1657 gave him a robe of honour and made him his jeweller in ordinary, and the Great Mogul Aurungzebe kept him to see his annual festival in 1665. Louis XIV. gave him 'letters of nobility' in 1669, and next year he bought the barony of Aubonne near Geneva. In 1684 he started for Berlin to advise the Elector of Brandenburg in his projects for eastern trade. Next year he sold his estate, but it is quite unlikely that he was thrown into the Bastille after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He sent his nephew to India with a valuable cargo, but is supposed to have been defrauded by him. In 1687 we find the veteran traveller obtaining a passport in Switzerland, next year he appears to have been at Copenhagen, and in February 1689 he arrived in Russia, where he died at Moscow before the close of the year. His famous Six Voyages was published in 1676; the complementary Recueil in 1679. Tavernier traversed the plains of Troy, and passed the ruins of Persepolis without even a flutter of interest, and partly perhaps from this habit of mind his statements are accurate and truthful beyond the measure of travellers. But the chief value of his book lies in the fullness and accuracy with which are detailed the nature and state of oriental commerce, the chief markets and commercial routes, the precious stones found, and the various systems of coinage. Editions of the Travels are of 1810 (7 vols.) and 1882 (abridged).
See Travels in India, trans. by Dr V. Ball (2 vols. 1890), and Charles Joret, Jean Baptiste Tavernier d'après des Documents Nouveaux (1886).