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Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605 – 1689) was a 17th-century French gem merchant and traveler. Tavernier, a private individual and merchant traveling at his own expense, covered by his own account, 60,000 leagues, 120,000 miles making six voyages to Persia and India between the years 1630-1668. In 1675, Tavernier, at the behest of his patron, Louis XIV, published Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (Six Voyages, 1676).

Tavernier was born in Paris of a French or Flemish Huguenot family that had emigrated to Antwerp to escape persecution and subsequently returned to Paris after the publication of the Edict of Nantes which promised protection for French Protestants. Both his father Gabriel and his uncle Melchior were cartographers. Though it is clear from the accuracy of his drawings that Tavernier received some instruction in the art of cartography/engraving, he was possessed of a wanderlust and while still a teenager traveled extensively through Europe and achieved a working knowledge of its major languages.