Acquired From: Leen Helmink
Colouring: Coloured
Condition: Very Good
Confirmed: Yes
Date Acquired: 22/4/2018
Description: Pieter van der Aa was a publisher, bookseller, and engraver based in Leiden in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He was not a mapmaker in the technical sense, but he produced many maps and views by adapting earlier French and Dutch sources for large multi-volume atlases such as Le Nouveau Théâtre du Monde (1713) and La Galerie Agréable du Monde (1729).nThis engraved harbour view represents Batavia (modern Jakarta), founded by the Dutch East India Company in 1619 as the administrative capital of the Dutch East Indies. The reference to observations des plus habiles pilotes signals that the chart was based on navigational knowledge and practical experience.nRather than presenting a panoramic town view, the plate functions as a working harbour chart. The fortified grid of the city is shown clearly at the head of the bay, while the roadstead is filled with depth soundings and named offshore islands. Many of these islands bear the names of Dutch cities such as Leyden, Enckhuyzen, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Middelborg reinforcing the connection between the Republic and its Asian trading centre. A scale in Dutch miles further emphasises the charts practical purpose.nBy the time of publication, Batavia had replaced ports such as Bantam (View Record (#187)) as the Companys principal base in Java. The image therefore records not only the layout of the harbour, but also the structure of Dutch commercial control in the region.
First published: Nouvel Atlas, Leiden: Pieter van der Aa, 1714
Mapmaker: Aa, Pierre [Pieter] van (1659-1733)
Price: 500
Primary Category: Southeast Asia
Purchase Reference: Ledger 2022
Rarity: R2 Very rare – one or two copies appear on the market
Technique: Copper Engraving
This state: La Galerie Agréable du Monde: Tome premier dAsie, Leiden: Pieter van der Aa
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