Friday, April 04, 2008

Voyage to Exotica

(Shark, remora, puffer fish etc)

(Shark, remora, puffer fish etc)



Sea-Eagle -- Johannes Nieuhof

(detail) The Sea-Eagle



A Malabar Shewing Tricks with Serpents

A Malabar Shewing Tricks with Serpents



Goegys of Benjan Saints

Goegys of Benjan Saints



The Taking of Ye City of Cotchin in Mallabar

The Taking of Ye City of Cotchin in Mallabar



Indian Figgs + The herb of the Bamboe Canes

Indian Figgs + The herb of the Bamboe Canes



(Sagou, Pepper, Durion, Bliming trees)

(Sagou, Pepper, Durion, Bliming trees)



A Marchant of Java

A Marchant of Java



A Melaya Captain IN 'Voyages and Travels into Brasil and the East-Indies'

A Melaya Captain



A Makasser with his Wife as they are Habited at Batavia AND The Habit of a Malayan and his Wife at Batavia

A Makasser with his Wife as they are Habited at Batavia
AND The Habit of a Malayan and his Wife at Batavia


Fish Market of Batavia IN 'Voyages and Travels into Brasil and the East-Indies'

Fish Market of Batavia



The Church of the Cross of Batavia

The Church of the Cross of Batavia



A Souldier of Amboina

A Souldier of Amboina



The Hospitall for Children of Batavia

The Hospitall for Children of Batavia



The City of Pellacata with its Castle

The City of Pellacata with its Castle



Tymorian Souldiers

Tymorian Souldiers


Johannes Nieuhof (or Nieuhoff) (1618-1672) lived in Brazil for nine years in the 1640s and was subsequently employed as an agent by the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

Surprisingly, there is scant information online about Nieuhof. He obviously travelled to India and Indonesia and the Far East (as seen from the illustrations above) and was later part of an official delegation to China which formed the backbone for another book. He was killed by locals in Madagascar during a return voyage to the East Indies.

The material above comes from Volume II of a series translated from the original Dutch and published by Churchill in London in 1703. From memory - (I looked into this ages ago in reference to the BibliOdyssey book but as usual my own copy has been purloined by family, friends and neighbours for the majority of time since it was released and is currently on leave) - the Churchill firm were veritable travel book entrepreneurs, exploiting the popularity of this new form of publication. Consequently, they seem to have produced a number compilation works in multiple editions that included variable sources for both the narratives and, in particular, the illustrations. In other words, their publications were a motley assortment of unreliability, but memorable for the large numbers of weird and wonderful images they included.

I have posted about Volume I (mostly about Brazil) previously. The short title of the work is: 'Voyages and Travels into Brasil and the East Indies' and is available from Cornell University's South East Asia Visions Collection. Once you click to get inside the book, there's a drop down menu that lists the copious number of plates, illustrations and maps.

4 comments:

  1. Sea Eagle??? Was it hallucinated by the remora and the pufferfish or by the human inhabitants of greater Indonesia?

    And (one can't help but ask) did the fearless traveler include any pictures of gamelans, dance dramas, and wayang kulit and/or golek?

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  2. a fala não me é suficiente...

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  3. I was also taken with the Sea Eagle!

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  4. Lovely post! Thanks for the visual feast.

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