Eberhard Isbrand Ides (1657 - 1708) was a Dutch - Danish merchant, traveler and diplomat. Little is known of his youth and education, but by 1677 he was trading with, and traveling to Russia; it is known that in 1687 he had settled in the German Quarter of Moscow. Following the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, he accompanied a Russo-German embassy to Kangxi China, in order to develop trade relations between the two empires. After returning, he engaged in projects modernizing Russia's military and Navy, eventually becoming a commissioner of the Russian Admiralty, and an administrator of export tariffs for the port of Arkhangelsk. His travels to China were aided by a Russian map of East Asia supplied him by Nicolas Witsen, which the Dutch scholar-statesman hoped Ides would correct; he would soon have his own information to add, being one of the first Europeans to describe the Gobi Desert firsthand. In 1704 which included his map. Different editions of Ides' Dreyjährige Reise nach China featured examples of the map engraved by an array of mapmakers: Halma did one of the Dutch editions and an English one; the Frankfurt edition of 1707 included a map engraved by Homann.