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View of Batavia

Andries Beeckman (Zutphen, year unknown - Amsterdam 1664)1662/1662

Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
Amsterdam, Netherlands

This is a multicultural society in the seventeenth century. In the foreground on the left you see a dancer with a shield, and another dancer kneeling down. These people are from Ambon. Towards the centre is a Dutchman with a sash, standing beneath a parasol, next to an Indonesian woman. High up in one of the palm trees, if you look very carefully, you can see a man cutting coconuts, and in the right-hand side of the painting, on the riverbank, there is a table filled with shark meat being sold by a Chinese merchant. In the background of the painting you see the massive building of the Castle of Batavia where the Dutch colonists lived, and in front of the castle you can see a procession with the Governor-General, Johan Maetsuyker, in his carriage. There are more people behind the procession, and you can also see two elephants watching the event. They were included to give the setting a more exotic tint, because of course there weren’t any elephants in Indonesia. An interesting detail is on the boat to the right, in the corner. You can see there the name of the painting: The Market in Batavia. In the seventeenth century it was a common practice for an artist to paint himself as an observer in the painting. Can you see the man sitting on the upturned boat in the foreground? It is thought that he is the painter of this: Andries Beeckman.

Two versions of this work were painted. The first, now at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, was displayed from 1663 at East Indies House on Nieuwe Hoogstraat in Amsterdam, above the fireplace in the council chamber of the directors - the Heren XVII - of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This second version may have been commissioned from Beeckman by a VOC governor, Arnold de Vlamingh van Outshoorn.

excl lijst: 144 x 209cm (56 11/16 x 82 5/16in.)

Source: collectie.tropenmuseum.nl

Details

  • Title: View of Batavia
  • Creator: Andries Beeckman (Zutphen, year unknown - Amsterdam 1664)
  • Date: 1662/1662
  • Location: Jawa

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