The harvesting of pineapples. From a set of ten tapestries called The History of the Chinese Emperor commissioned by Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, son of King Louis XIV, to the Beauvais Manufacture. At the end of the 17th century, the Jesuite missionaries were returning from China with tales and knowledge that were to influence the royal courts of Europe. These tapestries, very exotic for the time, were initially made for the Rambouillet castle.