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Bibliography

Primary sources



Journaal Wegens Een Voyagie, Gedaan Op Order Der Hollandsche Oost-Indische Maatschappy in De Jaaren-1696 En 1697 Door Het Hoekerscheepje De Nyptang Het Schip De Geelvink, En Het Galjoot De Wezel, Na Het Onbekende Zuid-Land, En Wyders Na Batavia. Amsterdam: Willem de Coup (and others), 1701.

Bontekoe, Willem Ysbrantz. Het Journael Ofte Gedenckwaerdige Beschrijvenghe Vande Oost-Indisch Reyse Van WIllem Ysbrantz. Bontekoe Van Hoorn. Hoorn: Isaac Willemsz. voor Ian Iansz. Deutel, 1646.

De Vries, Simon. Drie Seer Aanmerkelyke Reysen Na En Door Veelerley Gewesten in Oost-Indien; Gedaen Door Christophorus Frikius, Chirurgyn; Elias Hesse, Berghschyver; Christophorus Schweitzer, Boekhouder, Yeder Bysonder Van't Jaer 1675 Tot 1686. Amsterdam: 1705.

Luiken, Jan,1649-1712., Dutch. War in Bantam in the Year 1682 ca. 1682.

Nieuhof, Johannes. Voyages & travels to the East Indies, 1653-1670. New York : Oxford University Press, 1988.

Having already travelled to Brazil, Johan Nieuhoff joined the VOC and resided several years in Batavia. He sent his notes and sketches to his brother, Hendrik Nieuhof, who added information and had the sketches made into engravings. They were first published in 1682. All of Nieuhof’s publications (including his accounts of China and Brazil) became extremely popular and were very influential upon European understanding of other parts of the world. While there is certainly a lack of exact realism and accuracy, based upon his surviving sketches and report of China, we know that he made simple sketches, focusing on major physical contours, major buildings, walls, and a few figures. His sketches were most definitely simpler than the final engravings produced in his published accounts, but his sketches seem to have been taken from life. Unfortunately, no original materials remain from the Voyages and Travels to the East Indies, so this comparison cannot be made of these views. It is suggested that the most accurate illustrations are those ornamenting the maps and the smaller ones fitted into the text. The others seem to be highly embellished by European engravers (1). [Ashley Mason]

1. Anthony Reid, “Introduction,” in Voyages and Travels to the East Indies, 1653-1670, Johan Nieuhof (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

Pelsaert, Francisco. Ongeluckige Voyagie, Van 't Schip Batavia, Nae De Osst-Indiën: Gebleven Op De Abrolhos Van Frederick Houtman: Als Mede De Groote Tyrranye Van Abas, Coninck Van Persien, Anno 1645 Te Samen Ghestelt Oock Met Veel Schoone Kopere Platen Verrijckt. Amsterdam: Voor Jan Jansz, 1647.

Rumpf, Georg Eberhard, ed. E. M. Beekman. The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet / Georgius Everhardus Rumphius ; Translated, Edited, Annotated and with an Introduction by E.M. Beekman. D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer. English. New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 1999.

Georg Eberhard Rumpf (1627-1702) joined the VOC after a peripatetic military career, and in 1652 sailed to the Dutch East Indies, where he spent the rest of his life. In Ambon, or Amboina, a small island northeast of Java, he was attracted by the strange creatures in this exotic island and he began studying natural history, collecting specimens and writing about them. There he produced most of his voluminous writings. Rumpf's major work was an illustrated herbal that described about 1,200 plants found in Ambon and the nearby areas. The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet, however, focuses not on plants but on crustaceans, shells, minerals and other items that are grouped into three categories: "Soft Shellfish," "Hard Shellfish," and "Minerals, Stones, and Other Rare Things." Each of the volume's 170 chapters examines one or more natural objects. The text also contains rich ethnographic records of the maritime world of Southeast Asia. Rumpf drew heavily on the indigenous lore of the natural world and frequently cited information collected from Chinese traders and immigrants.

Book reviews referred to:

Fan, Fa-ti. "The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (Book-Review)." Isis 93, no.1 (2002): 119-120.

Ritvo, Harriet. "The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (Book-Review)." Nature, no. 400 (1999): 832.

Flannery, T. "The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet." New York Review of Books 46, no. 20 (1999): 74.

McDonald, Maggie. "The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (Review)." New Scientist 163, no. 2200 (1999): 50.

[Sicong Zhu]

Unger, Willem Sybrand. De Oudste Reizen Van De Zeeuwen Naar Oost-Indië, 1598-1604. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1948.

Valentijn, François. Oud En Nieuw Oost-Indiën : Vervattende Een Naaukeurige En Uitvoerige Verhandelinge Van Nederlands Mogentheyd in Die Gewesten, Benevens Eene Wydluftige Beschryvinge Der Moluccos, Amboina, Banda, Timor En Solor, Java, En Alle De Eylanden Onder Dezelve Landbestieringen Behoorende : Het Nederlands Comptoir Op Suratte, En De Levens Der Groote Mogols : Als Ook Een Keurlyke Verhandeling Van 't Wezentlykste Dat Men Behoort Te Weten Van Choromandel, Pegu, Arracan, Bengale, Mocha, Persien, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Malabar, Celebes of Macassar, China, Japan, Tayouan of Formosa, Tonkin, Cambodia, Siam, Borneo, Bali, Kaap Der Goede Hoop En Van Mauritius : Te Zamen Dus Behelzende Niet Alleen Eene Zeer Nette Beschryving Van Alles, Wat Nederlands Oost-Indien Betreft, Maar Ook 't Voornaamste Dat Eenigzins Tot Eenige Andere Europeërs, in Die Gewesten, Betrekking Heeft. Franeker: Van Wijnen, 2002.

This book, written by François Valentijn, discusses the different countries that the Dutch East India Company traded with in the Far East. Valentijn spent sixteen years in the East Indies as a minister, and he lived in tropical locales such as Java and Ambon. This book contains more than a thousand illustrations, including the most up-to-date maps of the eighteenth century. [Tami Latta]

https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008243400 https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008243673 https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008243665 https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008243657 https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008243392

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Secondary sources



General History

Banjarmasin (Sultanate). Dutch East Indies. Arsip Nasional Republik. Surat-Surat Perdjandjian Antara Kesultanan Bandjarmasin Dengan pemerintahan2 V.0.C., Bataafse Republik, Inggeris Dan Hindia-Belanda, 1635-1860. Jakarta: Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, Kompartimen Perhubungan dengan Rakjat, 1965.

Bataviaasch Genootschap Van Kunsten En Wetenschappen. Realia. Register Op De Generale Resolutien Van Het Kasteel Batavia ' 1632-1805. Leiden: Kolff, 1882-86.

Bredin, D. "Indomitable Dutch." The New York Times Magazine (January 18, 1942): 8-9+.

Bree, J. La. De Rechterlijke Organisatie En Rechtsbedeling Te Batavia in De XVIIe Eeuw. ‘s Gravenhage: Nijgh & van Ditmar, 1915?.

Chijs, Jacobus Anne van der. Nederlansch-Indisch Plakaatboek, 1602-1811. Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1885-1901.

Frederick, William H. "Hidden Change in Late Colonial Urban Society in Indonesia." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 14, no. 2 (Sep., 1983): pp. 354-371.

Hanna, Willard A. Indonesian Banda: Colonialism and its Aftermath in the Nutmeg Islands. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978.

The book describes the colonial influences during the occupation of the Banda Islands of Indonesia. Strangely, they only comprise of “six microscopic scraps of one-crop real estate which account for only one twenty-fifth thousandth of its national income” (page 3). The book continues to describe the first piece of real estate owned by the Dutch who then declared sovereign rights. Further readings describe the slaughter that Jan Pieterszoon Coen led on the Islands during the V.O.C. control. Slaves, laborers, and Europeans “replaced the natives of the Island, leading to mutation and decay of Banda’s social and cultural construct." [Arjun Ahluwalia]

Keane, Webb. Signs of Recognition : Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Lape, Peter Vanderford. "Contact and Conflict in the Banda Islands, Eastern Indonesia 11th--17th Centuries." (2000).

Purbalingga, Indonesia Pemerintah Kabupaten. Memorie Penjerahan Djabatan Bupati Purbalingga (Memorie Van Overgave). Purbalingga: Sekretariaat Kabupaten, 1969.

Reid, Anthony. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

---------. Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era : Trade, Power, and Belief. Asia, East by South. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993.

Reid, Anthony and Jennifer Brewster. Slavery, Bondage, and Dependency in Southeast Asia. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983.

Ward, Kerry Ruth. ""The Bounds of Bondage": Forced Migration from Batavia to the Cape of Good Hope during the Dutch East India Company Era, c. 1652-1795." PhD, The University of Michigan, 2002.

Arts

Godfrey, Tony. "Beyond the Dutch: Utrecht." The Burlington Magazine 152, (February, 2010): 124-125.

Jorg, C. J. A. Interaksi Porselin Delft Dan Keramik Timur. Jakartsa: Museum Nasional, 1984.

Larsen, Erik. "Jan Vermeer Van Delft and the Art of Indonesia." Revue Belge d'Archeologie Et d'Histoire De l'Art 54, (1985): 17-27.

Larsen claims that Vermeer was inspired by the Hindu and Buddhist aesthetic of the East Indies. He argues that as such a great artist, Vermeer could not have developed his unique soft lit and tranquil style without inspiration. His work differs from other contemporaneous artists so much, that Larsen asserts that Vermeer must have been aware of the art of other cultures as Asian objects found their way into Dutch collections – especially those gathered by former VOC officers who tended to retire in the artist's hometown of Delft. Women were often portrayed as emotional or energetic by Dutch artists, but Vermeer’s figures differ in that they are static and lack expression. Larsen postulates that these forms reflect psychologically pensive characters that maintain a trance-like immobility uncommon in Western art, but routinely present in Buddhist imagery. Larsen believes that Vermeer’s display of relaxed eyes beneath curved brows set within a soft oval face all indicate that he was inspired by an oriental canon of beauty more than other artists of his time. The use of soft yellow, blue, and green colors also point to a palette employed by Hindu painters in Asia than Christians in Europe. [Nathan Popp]

Zandvliet, K., Leonard Blusse, and Rijksmuseum. The Dutch Encounter with Asia, 1600-1950. Amsterdam; Zwolle: Rijksmuseum; Waanders, 2002.

Zandvliet offers a huge survey of all manner of dutch, indigenous and hybrid visual production. The works presented span four centuries of Dutch interactions with Asia, and huge geographical sweep. However, since the Dutch presence in Asia was based in Batavia, a significant number of artifacts come from the Indonesian archipelago. The book relies on a thematic and highly object-based approach, pairing brief thematic introductions with short historic summaries of a multitude of objects that fit each specific theme. The thematic chapters are themselves grouped in major chronological periods, which helps give the themes relevance, and avoids the issue of a-historicism that so often plagues thematic histories. Drawing on the very rich collection of the Rijksmuseum, there is a notable reliance on objects produced by Dutch artist working for or inspired by the VOC trading missions in Asia; however there are also many objects produced by local artists. This reliance on Dutch objects is particularly true in the second and third chapters, "Bureaucracy from Batavia," and "Governor-General Portraits, 1609-1945." There is a wider focus in the remaining chapters of the first section, which collectively emphasize the indirect rule and interculturation that typified the Dutch experience in Asia before the 19th century. Objects like a ceremonial suit of European armor given to the Japanese Shogun, and the Portrait of King Sayfudin of Tidore do a good job emphasizing how the Dutch entered a complex diplomatic world, and their efforts to appease and work with local rulers. Examples like these go to the larger thrust of the book, that the Dutch presence in Asia produced a population that was in many ways part of Asia, even while maintaining many European customs and expectations. [Tyler Ostergaard]

Local Arts

Adasko, Laura and Alice Huberman. Batik in Many Forms. New York: Morrow, 1975.

Co-authors Laura Adasko and Alice Huberman share their love of the history, practice and experience of the ancient Javanese art of batik in their 1975 work, Batik in Many Forms. In a book geared toward both novice and more experienced fabric designers, the authors explore the batik process, examining the nature of waxes, dyes, fabrics and special tools, as well as the artistic values of design, color and technique in the book’s first two parts. The authors argue that the integration of the functional with the artistic is what makes batik a very special, very personal craft. While the thrust of the book is directed toward the process, the authors do provide a cursory look at the history of batik, crediting the Dutch East India Company with bringing Indonesian batik to Europe as early as 1602 and then on to Africa. As batik spread through Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they state, its popularity increased and a new industry developed, most notably in England. There batik was eventually produced through an industrial process, although never with much success because efforts to replicate the crackle effect proved too difficult and expensive. Batik underwent a resurgence in the 1890s with the Art Nouveau movement, and again in the 1970s when artists began experimenting with ancient techniques as well as adopting new, more painterly methods. [Elizabeth Schmid]

Elliott, Inger McCabe. Batik, Fabled Cloth of Java. 1st ed. New York: C.N. Potter : Distributed by Crown, 1984.

This well-illustrated text focuses on the batik produced on the northern coast of Java, including the major port cities of Jakarta, Semarang, and Surabaya, areas not traditionally known as major zones for batik production. Divided into chapters intended to set the author's argument in appropriate historical and cultural context, Elliott first attends to the origins of batik as an art form, discussing a variety of subject matter from religion and Javanese culture to the role of the Dutch in Java and the evolution of the batik industry. Elliott states that the Dutch played an integral role in the development of techniques for batik production; for over 100 years beginning in 1824, the Dutch were the sole suppliers of a finely woven cotton product that was required for the intricate detailing and sharp color separations. Following an overview of the batik process, accompanied by images of the tools and procedures as well of the final product, the author moves forward to a discussion of the role of batik in royal courts, where complex customs govern use of patterns and regional details. Subsequent chapters address the relationship between Islam and the production and usage of batik in Java, the city of Pekalongan and its importance to Javanese batik, and the development of modern batik. [Lauren M. Freese]

Fraser-Lu, Sylvia. Indonesian Batik : Processes, Patterns and Places. Images of Asia. Singapore ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

The text introduces the reader to Batik making and the process that goes into it. The textiles reflect the diverse cultural histories of most of the east Asian nations, by design and patterns lent from countries such as India, China, Arabia, and European nations’ influences. The text is quite general and its strongest focus is on the designs and patterns of Batik textiles. [Arjun Amrik Singh Ahluwalia]

Hope, Jonathan. "Look East." Hali no. 129 (July/August, 2003): 105.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Rens Heringa, and Harmen Veldhuisen. Fabric of Enchantment : Batik from the North Coast of Java : From the Inger McCabe Elliott Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, Calif.; New York City, N.Y.: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Weatherhill, 1996.

Pott, Peter H. and M. A. Sutaarga. "Arrangements Concluded Or in Progress for the Return of Objects: The Netherlands-Indonesia." Museum International (Paris, France) 31, no. 1 (1979): 38-42.

Veldhuisen, Harmen. Batik Belanda, 1840-1940 : Dutch Influence in Batik from Java, History and Stories. Jakarta: Gaya Favorit, 1993.

Dutch Arts

Jessup, Helen. "Dutch Architectural Visions of the Indonesian Tradition." Muqarnas 3, (1985): pp. 138-161.

This article explores the formation and implementation of a distinctively “Indonesian” modern architectural style during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries after the disintegration of the VOC. Jessup argues that it was the condition of colonialism in Indonesia that initiated the rejection of the Netherlandish, transitory structures that the VOC had established for trading bases. To build her case, Jessup relies upon the theoretical research and subsequent Javanese structures of Henri Maclaine Pont and later, his student Herman Thomas Karsten. These two architects, trained in the Netherlands and acutely aware of Javanese cultural traditions, serve as case studies to demonstrate the significance of local values being incorporated into various buildings’ modern social settings. In their designs for churches, public housing projects, and town planning, both Maclaine Pont and Karsten indicated that forms rooted in indigenous traditions were to remain the basic elements of their new architectural language (144). Despite the blending of idealism and practicality in their Javanese buildings, the ideas of Maclaine Pont and Karsten fell dormant; the privileging of local conditions was largely neglected in favor of an “uncritical adoption of Western urban ideas and forms (159).” [Amanda Strasik]

Sint Nicolaas, Eveline. "Drie Indische Kanonnen En Hun Geschiedenis." Bulletin Van Het Rijksmuseum 55, no. 1 (2007): 40-57, 102-5.