A Golden Age

Hartog only arrived in Western Australia because four hundred years ago the Dutch were building a trading empire that helped shape our modern world. Hartog was sailing from the Netherlands to Java where the city of Batavia (modern Jakarta) was becoming an important base for the world’s first multinational company, the Dutch East India Company, the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC. Their trade reached across the Indian Ocean and stretched as far as Japan and China. The wealth this trade brought back to the Netherlands created a golden age of prosperity for this small, newly independent country. The objects, paintings and maps shown here help to introduce Hartog’s world and why Dutch ships found their way to Western Australia.

Exotic and Abundant

A market stall in the Indies
Attributed to Albert Eckhout, 1640-1666
Rijksmuseum, Netherlands, SK-A-4070

This Dutch painting shows an East Indies market stall. Sights like this were seen by Dutch travellers reaching Java and the Spice Islands. In the picture, local Javanese women are buying fruit from the Chinese stall keeper who is counting money. Behind him, a boy reaches out to steal a banana. This is an imagined scene as the painter never went to the East Indies.

The Dutch built colonies in present day Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, South Africa and other places to run their trading business. Their control over trade sometimes lead to conflict and war with local powers. Over time these settlements attracted local people and others to live and trade.

Rocked to Sleep by Monsters

Cradle
Made in southern India, 1650-1700
Rijksmuseum, Netherlands, BK-1966-48

The baby of a Dutch family once slept in this cradle, as they lived in one of the VOC’s trading posts. Rocked to sleep, perhaps by a servant, in a cradle decorated with friendly monsters and Asian figures. A small elephant’s head sits on top of the headboard. Underneath, are a mermaid and merman with fishy tails and European faces. At the other end, two fishy sea monsters, Makara, with ivory eyes guard the cradle. The cradle is supported with people of Indian appearance sitting on a deer or antelope.

When the Dutch first arrived to live in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, they were surprised at how little furniture was used by local people. Furniture from Europe was expensive to ship and was easily eaten by termites. So they ordered furniture to be made locally in hard Asian wood, especially from Sri Lanka and southern India, where this cradle was made from ebony wood and white elephant ivory.

View of Batavia

View of Batavia
Hendrick Jacobsz. Dubbels, 1640-1676
Rijksmuseum, Netherlands, SK-A-2513

This painting shows Dutch ships in front of the port of Batavia. This was the headquarters of the VOC at what is today Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Batavia was the destination of the Dutch ships that visited Western Australia.

On the left of the river running through the middle of town is the main castle. Roofs of the larger buildings show above the walls on both sides of the river. The walls were needed to defend the town from attack from local rulers. On the far left, the outer suburbs of the town can be seen.

What cannot be seen behind the walls was the busy cosmopolitan trading centre. Here Dutch families lived with other Europeans and Asians, free people and slaves. Batavia traded people as well as spices and goods.

The painter never saw the city. He lived his whole life in Holland and must have used other people’s drawings and paintings to recreate this scene.

The Secret Spice Map

Spice Map
Plancius, 1617
Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth, 2014.086

This map shows where expensive spices were grown and is decorated with pictures of nutmeg, cloves, and sandalwood. It was printed in the Netherlands in 1594 as publicity to encourage interest in Dutch voyages to the East Indies (Indonesia).

In 1592, Dutch explorer Cornelis de Houtman went to Portugal to obtain secret maps that would enable him to sail to the spice islands of the East Indies. He gave them to mapmaker Petrus Plancius who first made this map in 1594. The map allowed Cornelis de Houtman to organise the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies from 1595-1597.