Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Dagbok East India Trading Company

map 1749 China + East Asia


turtle


sea bug + tropical fish


sea bug (detail)


stylised sharks and fish


2 sailing ships


long boat + Chinese junk


Chinese junk (detail)


sea creatures


stylised flying fish and other fish


Cadiz map + sea shell + urchin


sailing ship + tropical fruit


Asian birds and stylised whale


birds and stylised animals


stylised ape (detail)


Chinese people


Asian nobleman and attendants


2 paintings - lighthouse and dock


Click to enlarge. Black bordered details were spliced from screencaps and almost all of the images have been cleansed. A bit.


The Swedish East India Company was formed under Royal Charter in 1731 and granted exclusive national trading rights with Asia, mostly through the port of Canton ( near Hong Kong). Round-trip voyages from the company's headquarters in Göteborg took around eighteen months and the major commodities transported back were tea, silk, porcelain and spices.

In all, there were 127 voyages undertaken prior to the company's becoming insolvent in 1813 due to reduced profits during the Napoleonic years. Eight major sailing vessels were either lost or partially destroyed while the company was operating, including the 'Götheborg', which famously sank on return to the harbour in Göteborg in 1745. In the 1990s, marine archaeologists were able to salvage some of the original ship, and after a ten year rebuilding project, a to-scale replica undertook a nineteen month voyage from Sweden to China and back, returning to Göteborg in June 2007.

The images above come from the diary of a cartographer (Carl Johan Gethe) on board the 'Götha Leyon', which left Sweden on a three year trading expedition in 1746. There is very little I can find about this particular voyage saving to note that a pupil of Carolus Linneaus, Carl Gustav Ekberg*, was the Ship's Surgeon and functioned as an amateur naturalist. One of the maps seen above is of the port of Cadiz in Spain, where ships stopped to trade merchandise for Spanish silver coins which they then used to purchase goods in China.

Gethe's diary ('Dagbok') (title: 'Dagbok hållen på resan till Ost Indien begynt den 18 octobr: 1746 och slutad den 20 juni 1749') is one of two diaries from crew members on the same voyage which are hosted by the National Library of Sweden. Although fairly similar, I think the quality of the watercolour sketches in Gethe's book is superior. The illustrations are elegant and beautifully colourful, if at times a little unsophisticated.

7 comments :

Tietie007 said...

Superbes planches !

A Family/Group Member said...

just want to give you kudos on your great and informative page

Nicole Natri said...

so glad i found your blog. i love antique engravings and such!

take care,
n

Fiammetta Ghedini said...

Pecay, your blog is great, thanks for share it with us!

I was wondering wheter you know (but I guess so) the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/HP/index.htm

and

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili

Thanks

Fiammetta

Iojanan said...

Todo el blog es extraordinario..! Desde Granada ( España )

Diane Dehler said...

Pecay, I have stopped to visit several times. I think I originally found you via Moon River. Congratulations!!!!!!! on your well deserved achievement and success. I find it inspiring and makes me want to go back and work even harder on my own blog. Even a ghost has to work up a little effort now and then; it's not all shadows and moonlight.
:) May this just be the first of several books.

peacay said...

Thanks everyone! {and it's peacay !, just by the by...as in my initials, PK}

Oh yes fiametta, I know the Hypnerotomachia fairly well. I've never featured it here because it has been posted to a few other sites. I may look into it one day...some day.

Thanks Princess Haiku but there are no plans for a sequel. That book took a whole year to get together and although I know that if there were another one it would probably take a fair bit less time, it's still a huge investment of energy and it might do my head in to go through it all again. I do abide by the never say never attitude in general, but in this case there are categorically, absolutely and definitely no plans being discussed for a BibliOdyssey Version II. At all.

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