Portrait of Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat

Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat

French sinologist

Lived
1788–1832
Country
France

Updated September 2026

About Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat

Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat was a French sinologist best known as the first Chair of Sinology at the Collège de France. Rémusat studied medicine as a young man, but his discovery of a Chinese herbal treatise enamored him with the Chinese language, and he spent five years teaching himself to read it. After publishing several well-received articles on Chinese topics, a chair in Chinese was created at the Collège de France in 1814 and Rémusat was placed in it.

Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers. Last updated September 2026.