Cornelis de Bruyns was a Dutch artist and traveller. He made two large tours and published illustrated books with his observations of people, buildings, plants and animals.

During his first tour, de Bruyns arrived to Smyrna from Sicily, visited Ephesus and continued on to Magnesia and finally Constantinople where he stayed for one and half year. In his chronicle he provides a description of the splendid capital and of the coasts of Bosporus. On the 1^st of July 1680 he crossed the Dardanelles by boat. He described the Troy region and in February 1681 departed from Smyrna to Chios, where he stayed for some time. He then travelled to the east Mediterranean, first to Cos and Rhodes, then to Egypt and from there to the Holy Land and Syria. On his return trip he visited Cyprus.

Returning in 1693 to the Hague he published his first book five years later (1698). The rich illustrations of his work made it extremely popular and was translated in several languages. He is the first traveller to have depicted the interior of the Pyramids in Egypt, Palmyra in Syria and Persepolis in Iran.