1599 The Bazaar at Bantam
DESCRIPTION
An engraved view of the great market of "Bantam" (modern-day Banten, Indonesia) and all its wares appears in this excerpted folding leaf from the de Brys' German account of the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies.
The caption reads "Eygentliche Contrafaytung deß Bazars oder Marckts zu Bantam, sampt allen seinen Wahren," or "True portrait of the bazaar or market at Bantam, with all its wares." Letters scattered across the scene key it to the text below, which names where melons, cucumbers, and coconuts are sold, where daggers or cris, sabres, and spears are found, and where men and women each sell linen cloth. The key goes on to the spice shops, the ironware stalls of Bengali and Gujarati traders, and separate markets for fish, fruit, herbs, onions, rice, and pepper, as well as the jewelers' booths, the foreign boats that bring food to market, and a market for poultry.
The First Dutch Voyage to the East Indies
The Frankfurt engraver Theodor de Bry and, after his death in 1598, his sons Johann Theodor and Johann Israel published two great illustrated series of voyages, the Grands Voyages to the Americas and the Petits Voyages to the East Indies. The third part of the Petits Voyages, issued in German as Dritter Theil Indiae Orientalis in 1599, recounts the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, which Cornelis de Houtman led from 1595 to 1597. Its account of Java draws on the journal of Willem Lodewijcksz, published at Amsterdam in 1598, and the de Brys re-engraved its views on copper, each with its own caption and passage of text. Houtman's fleet anchored off Bantam, the great pepper port of western Java, in 1596, where traders from China, India, Persia, and Arabia already did business. The voyage lost most of its men and its dealings ashore were often violent, but it proved that Dutch ships could reach the spice islands and opened the way for the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602.
CONDITION
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