Support The fine, plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though slightly trimmed at the top, and there is a selvedge at the bottom. Judging by the crack pattern parallel to the top, left and right edges, the bars of the original strainer were approx. 6 cm wide.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the trimmed edge of the canvas at the top, almost up to the tacking edges at the bottom and on the right, and over the one on the left. The first, white layer is followed by a brown layer.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography revealed lines throughout the landscape, some of which are also visible to the naked eye. Very fine detailed drawing indicates the architectural elements, the gallows behind Fort Nassau in the foreground, the pier and the moored Dutch ship. Freer curved lines mark the shore and the canopies of the trees in the village on the left. Subtle deviations were made in the final painting regarding the positioning and shape of many of the buildings.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the trimmed edge of the canvas at the top, almost up to the tacking edges at the bottom and on the right, and over the one on the left. The sky, hills and background landscape were applied first, mostly wet in wet. The large expanse of land was painted thinly in broad strokes, followed by the architectural elements and trees. The details around the buildings and the highlights were then added. After the sea had been brushed up to the shore, the small waves in the foreground, the ships, boats and figures were rendered. The painting technique is direct with fine brushstrokes and sparing use of slight impasto.
Laurent Sozzani [publication date 2026]

Good. The paint is slightly abraded throughout, especially in the landscape around Fort Belgica in the centre. There is considerable retouching along the left and right edges. The varnish is uneven and has yellowed.

For the present painting (SK-A-4476) and six other Asian views (SK-A-4471 to 4475 and SK-A-4477)
Commissioned from the workshop of Johannes Vingboons, with three other paintings, for fl. 1,040, by the Amsterdam chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), before 30 April 1663;¹¹NATH, VOC Archives, acc. no. 1.04.02, inv. no. 4583, Generale staten 1642-1678, 30 April 1663; see K. Zandvliet, Mapping for Money: Maps, Plans and Topographic Paintings and their Role in Dutch Overseas Expansion during the 16th and 17th Centuries, Amsterdam 1998, p. 270. According to the bookkeeper of the Amsterdam VOC chamber, the other chambers (of Middelburg, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Delft and Rotterdam) owed it a total of 520 guilders for a series of ten paintings. The money had already been paid to David Vingboons. It is assumed that the Amsterdam chamber itself was responsible for half of the invoice, which would mean that the entire sum for the series was 1,040 guilders; see ibid., p. 270. ? recorded in East India House, Hoogstraat, Amsterdam, 1663,²²O. Dapper, Historische beschryving der stadt Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1663, p. 448: ‘In de zael daer de Bewinthebbers vergaderen […] hangen rontom d’Eylanden van de Molukken, slooten, bosschaedjens, dicht van specery-boomen, steden, havens, kapen, die wy aen het anderen eint des werelts bezitten. Daer hangen uitgeschildert de plaetzen, dicht by China gelegen, waer aen men speurt wat een gunst de Nederlanders by verre gelege volken dagelijx meer en meer vinden’. 1664³³F. von Zesen, Beschreibung der Stadt Amsterdam: Darinnen von Derselben ersten Ursprunge bis auf gegenwärtigen Zustand, ihr unterschiedlicher Anwachs, herliche Vorrechte und in mehr als 70 Kupfer-stükken entworfene fürnehmste Gebeue [...] vor augen gestellet werden, Amsterdam 1664, p. 315: ‘Ja noch mehr dergleichen gemahlte tafeln und abrisse, wie auch allerhand seltzame Ost-Indische gewächse siehet man in den andern sählen und kammern’. and 1765;⁴⁴J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutterye, gilden en regeeringe, II, Amsterdam 1761, p. 83: ‘In sommigen [kamers], daar de Bewindhebbers vergaderen, zyn eenige Chineesche en andere Schilderyen geplaatst’. transferred to the Ministry of the Colonies, The Hague, between 1831 and 1847;⁵⁵In 1831 paintings from the Koloniaal Magazijn (Colonial Storehouse) in East India House were given to the Ministry of the Colonies, which was transferred from Amsterdam to The Hague in the same year; see J.C. Overvoorde, ‘Gebouwen der O.I. Compagnie: Amsterdam’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 29 (1928), pp. 17-55, esp. p. 32. It is assumed that the present series of seven paintings was among those mentioned. A document of 1847 about shipments from the Ministry of the Colonies mentions all ten pictures; see K. Zandvliet, Mapping for Money: Maps, Plans and Topographic Paintings and their Role in Dutch Overseas Expansion during the 16th and 17th Centuries, Amsterdam 1998, p. 270. recorded in the attic of the Ministry of the Colonies, 1873;⁶⁶V. de Stuers, Holland op zijn smalst, Amsterdam 1873, p. 34. transferred to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. nos. 2853-59), 1876;⁷⁷Notes RMA. The paintings with inv. nos. 2858 (SK-A-4476) and 2859 (SK-A-4477) were badly damaged. transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: SK-A-4476

The entire series of Asian views

In Holland op zijn smalst (Holland at its Meanest), his famous pamphlet of 1873 about the abominable condition of the nation’s cultural heritage and the lack of interest in it, Victor de Stuers noted that a discovery had been made at the Ministry of the Colonies in The Hague of ‘a series, not for art but for history, of most remarkable paintings from the seventeenth century depicting our former trading posts in India and the East Indies, namely Judea [Bangkok], Neijra [Banda Neira], Eawec [Khum Peam Lvek], Raaiebaagh [Raybag], Canton, Couchijn [Kochi], Cananor [Kannur]. These works, which have been partly torn to shreds, were recently discovered in the peat loft.’⁸⁸V. de Stuers, Holland op zijn smalst, Amsterdam 1873, p. 34. The seven paintings belonged to a series of ten that was removed from East India House, the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Amsterdam, between 1831 and 1847.⁹⁹See Provenance to the painting under discussion here. Three of them were thrown away between 1848 and 1873, probably because they were damaged beyond repair.¹⁰¹⁰These works were mentioned in a 1847 document from the Ministry of the Colonies in The Hague regarding shipments (see K. Zandvliet, Mapping for Money: Maps, Plans and Topographic Paintings and their Role in Dutch Overseas Expansion during the 16th and 17th Centuries, Amsterdam 1998, p. 270): De Chom van Suhalij (The Bay of Suvali near Surat, India), De Stadt en het Casteel Souratte (The town and castle of Surat, India) and Visiapour (Bijapur, India). An anonymous official inserted an addendum to the document at an unknown date stating that the three paintings had been destroyed. In 1663 the Amsterdam chamber of the VOC paid 520 guilders for the complete series to David Vingboons, one of Johannes’s younger brothers who was probably acting as the representative of the family workshop.¹¹¹¹See Provenance to the painting under discussion here. The purchase may have been connected with the partial rebuilding of East India House between 1658 and 1661.¹²¹²K. Zandvliet, Mapping for Money: Maps, Plans and Topographic Paintings and their Role in Dutch Overseas Expansion during the 16th and 17th Centuries, Amsterdam 1998, p. 270; K. Zandvliet (ed.), The Dutch Encounter with Asia 1600-1950, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2002-03, p. 169. It is not certain where the paintings hung, but the general consensus is that they were in the directors’ conference room, although the well-known drawing of that room by Simon Fokke fails to resolve the issue.¹³¹³RP-P-OB-84.691. The only painting in the drawing that can be identified with some certainty is Andries Beeckman’s View of Batavia over the mantelpiece (see SK-A-19). According to R. van Gelder and L. Wagenaar, Sporen van de Compagnie: De VOC in Nederland, Amsterdam 1988, p. 67, the paintings to the left of the fireplace are the view of possibly Raybag in the Vingboons series (SK-A-4473) and an anonymous bird’s-eye view of Ambon (SK-A-4482). There is no agreement on the original location of the conference room in the building or on its size and decoration; see J.J. Jehee, ‘De plaats van de grote zaal in het Oost-Indisch Huis te Amsterdam: Wat zegt het gebouw nu zelf?’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 101 (2002), pp. 41-48; E.H. Mattie and C. van Soestbergen, ‘Het Oost Indisch Huis te Amsterdam: Problemen bij de reconstructie van een historisch interieur’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 100 (2001), pp. 93-99, esp. pp. 96-97. See W. Jeeninga, Het Oostindisch Huis en het Sint Jorishof te Amsterdam/The East Indies House and St Jorishof, Zwolle 1995, pp. 16-39, for the construction, rebuilding, layout and decoration of East India House.

The Amsterdam chamber paid David Vingboons for the series but it is not clear who was responsible for the individual works, whether more than one person was involved and, if so, who had which share. No other paintings from the Vingboons studio have survived, so it is impossible to distinguish between the hands of the various family members. In any event, the scenes are based on models that Johannes also used for his atlases, and oddly enough the pictures were made a few years before the only atlases that can be dated with certainty – those of Cosimo III de’ Medici and Laurens van der Hem of 1667-68.¹⁴¹⁴E. de Groot, The World of a 17th-Century Collector: The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem, ’t Goy-Houten 2006, pp. 188-90. Since David left no autonomous works at all, and Johannes was the only one who is known for certain to have been in touch with Joan Blaeu, it is assumed that the series was made under his supervision. In fact, Johannes probably managed the workshop and was responsible for its output, for the eldest son, Pieter, had died long before, and Philips, the next in line, had left home.

The accounts of travellers and the city’s chroniclers show that East India House was one of Amsterdam’s main sights in the seventeenth century.¹⁵¹⁵J.I. Pontanus, Historische Beschrijvinghe der seer wijt beroemde Coop-Stadt Amsterdam: Eerst int Latijn ghestelt ende beschreven door Ioh. Isacium Pontanum ende by den selven oock naderhandt neerstich oversien ende op veel plaetsen vermeerdert ende verbetert: Ende nu wt des Autheurs laetste Copije in Nederduyts overgheset door Petrum Montanum, Amsterdam 1614, p. 145; O. Dapper, Historische beschryving der stadt Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1663, p. 448; F. von Zesen, Beschreibung der Stadt Amsterdam: Darinnen von Derselben ersten Ursprunge bis auf gegenwärtigen Zustand, ihr unterschiedlicher Anwachs, herliche Vorrechte und in mehr als 70 Kupfer-stükken entworfene fürnehmste Gebeue (...) vor augen gestellet werden, Amsterdam 1664, pp. 312-14. Cosimo III de’ Medici visited it on several occasions; see G.J. Hoogewerf, De twee reizen van Cosimo de’ Medici, prins van Toscane, door de Nederlanden (1667-1669): Journalen en documenten, Amsterdam 1919, pp. 43, 163, 274, 279. It contained many exotic curios, and the walls were covered with paintings and maps that gave an idea of the places in the Far East where the VOC had a presence.¹⁶¹⁶W. Jeeninga, Het Oostindisch Huis en het Sint Jorishof te Amsterdam/The East Indies House and St Jorishof, Zwolle 1995, pp. 32-39. The series of Asian views from the Vingboons workshop fitted in with them perfectly. It is generally assumed that they are depictions of the main Dutch factories in the Far East and locations where the Dutch had trading posts.¹⁷¹⁷K. Zandvliet (ed.), The Dutch Encounter with Asia 1600-1950, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2002-03, pp. 169-70. Some of them, though, played no significant role in Dutch-Asian relations and in others there was no VOC representative around 1663. Only a few of the most important places with which the VOC traded featured in the decorative programme of East India House. First and foremost there is Andries Beeckman’s View of Batavia.¹⁸¹⁸SK-A-19. Neither the sources nor surviving paintings inform us that there were depictions in East India House of trading stations such as Deshima, Makassar, Malacca, Hooghly-Chinsurah, Colombo, Galle, Nagapattinam and Vengurla, where the Dutch had offices or factories or both. Their importance was immeasurably greater than that of Raybag, Khum Peam Lvek and Ayutthaya, or even Bijapur in the Vingboons series.¹⁹¹⁹For the first three places see SK-A-4473, SK-A-4475 and SK-A-4477. The view of Bijapur is one of the three paintings thrown away. This of course raises the question as to why he painted the sites that he did. Did the Amsterdam chamber already have other scenes that have since been lost?²⁰²⁰One work that is mentioned in all the sources but is no longer known is described as ‘the court of the King of China’ in J.I. Pontanus, Historische Beschrijvinghe der seer wijt beroemde Coop-Stadt Amsterdam: Eerst int Latijn ghestelt ende beschreven door Ioh. Isacium Pontanum ende by den selven oock naderhandt neerstich oversien ende op veel plaetsen vermeerdert ende verbetert: Ende nu wt des Autheurs laetste Copije in Nederduyts overgheset door Petrum Montanum, Amsterdam 1614, p. 145. O. Dapper, Historische beschryving der stadt Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1663, p. 448, was probably referring to the same picture when he spoke of ‘Chinese and Japanese paintings’. J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutterye, gilden en regeeringe, II, Amsterdam 1761, p. 83, also writes about ‘some Chinese (…) paintings’. M. Gosselink, ‘Johannes Vingboons’, in M. Gosselink, Land in zicht: Vingboons tekent de wereld van de 17de eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal) 2007, p. 155, note 6, believes that Pontanus did not mean the court in Beijing but the castle of Osaka, which is known from a watercolour copy by Vingboons. Whatever the truth of the matter, the painting has not survived. Was Vingboons’s selection arbitrary, or does it reflect the ambitions cherished by the VOC in the early 1660s? The fact that four of the ten views are of places on or near the Malabar Coast in the south-west of India that were captured from the Portuguese in 1661 and 1663 might suggest this.²¹²¹They are the views of Kochi (SK-A-4471), Kannur (SK-A-4472) and possibly Raybag (SK-A-4473), and the one of Bijapur (lost). There had also been recent developments at the Cambodian and Thai lodges.²²²²See SK-A-4475 and SK-A-4477 respectively. Damaged relations with both countries were mended in 1664. In addition, the VOC sent fresh diplomatic missions to China in 1663 and 1665, which may have been a reason to depict Guangzhou.²³²³SK-A-4474. L. Blussé, Tribuut aan China: Vier eeuwen Nederlands-Chinese betrekkingen, Amsterdam 1989, p. 82. One thing that militates against that theory, though, is that the VOC had been in some of these locations, such as Banda Neira and Surat, uninterruptedly since the beginning of the seventeenth century.²⁴²⁴For Banda Neira see SK-A-4476. Two paintings of or near Surat in the Vingboons series are among the three paintings lost.

Erlend de Groot [publication date 2026]

For a long time the only place where nutmeg trees grew was in the Banda archipelago – a dozen islands in the southern part of the Moluccas. That made the region very important to the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which built Fort Nassau on Neira, the central island, in 1607.²⁷²⁷P. van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, ed. F.W. Stapel, II.1, The Hague 1931, pp. 167-68; A. de Roever and B. Brommer, Grote atlas van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie/Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch United East India Company, III: Indische Archipel en Oceanië/Malay Archipelago and Oceania, Voorburg 2008, pp. 15-16. It stood on a flat strip of land by the waterside, which made it difficult to defend, so in 1611 Fort Belgica was constructed on a prominence nearby.²⁸²⁸G. Schilder et al., Grote Atlas van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie/Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch United East India Company, I: Atlas Isaak de Graaf/Atlas Amsterdam, Voorburg 2006, pp. 329-31; A. de Roever and B. Brommer, Grote atlas van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie/Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch United East India Company, III: Indische Archipel en Oceanië/Malay Archipelago and Oceania, Voorburg 2008, pp. 15-16, 335-37. Part of the mountain behind the structure was dug away to improve its defences. The fort was replaced in 1662, and owes its present form to radical modifications made in 1672-73. Standing a little further up to the range of hills was the Neira redoubt that protected the water supplies to the settlement.²⁹²⁹P. van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, ed. F.W. Stapel, II.1, The Hague 1931, p. 175: ‘een steene borstwering (…) tot bewaringe van de waterputh’ (a stone rampart (…) to protect the well). The great importance of the trade in nutmeg and mace and the constant threat from other nations to the VOC’s monopoly led Governor-General Jan Pietersz Coen to commit an atrocity in 1621-22.³⁰³⁰P. van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, ed. F.W. Stapel, II.1, The Hague 1931, pp. 170-75. Most of the inhabitants were massacred, expelled or deported, and the islands were divided up into plantations that were leased to so-called ‘parkers’.³¹³¹There were 78 nutmeg ‘parks’ in 1694; see P. van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, ed. F.W. Stapel, II.1, The Hague 1931, p. 199.

The painting is a bird’s-eye view of Neira from the south. A Dutch ship is moored off Fort Nassau in the foreground, beyond which are Fort Belgica and the redoubt. The village is in the west of the island with a gallows field next to it. On the other side are five parks of nutmeg trees separated by fencing.³²³²In fact there were never more than three parks on Neira. In 1694 there were 2, with 53 on Lonthor (present-day Banda Besar) and 23 on Pulau Ai; see P. van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, ed. F.W. Stapel, II.1, The Hague 1931, p. 199. Judging by contemporary maps, the small, red-roofed building on the far right is the hospital. The hills in the right background are the product of the artist’s imagination. They are missing in the very similar watercolour in the Beudeker Atlas.³³³³The Hague, National Archives of the Netherlands; illustrated in M. Gosselink, Land in zicht: Vingboons tekent de wereld van de 17de eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal) 2007, p. 126. There is an almost identical view in a small atlas preserved in the British Library, London; illustrated in ibid., p. 47. The bay on the west side is equally unrealistic in that it reaches far further inland than it actually did. There is also a relatively deep bay in the map of Neira drawn during the expedition of the VOC merchant Artus Gijsels to the Banda archipelago in the 1630s.³⁴³⁴Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek; illustrated in A. de Roever and B. Brommer, Grote atlas van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie/Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch United East India Company, III: Indische Archipel en Oceanië/Malay Archipelago and Oceania, Voorburg 2008, p. 335. On Gijsels see W.P. Coolhaas, Generale missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, I, The Hague 1960, p. 279, note 6. Johannes Vingboons almost certainly knew that map, which was also used for the views of the Banda Islands in the Blaeu-Van der Hem Atlas, which were also made in the family’s workshop.³⁵³⁵P. van der Krogt and E. de Groot, The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem of the Austrian National Library, V, ’t-Goy Houten 2005, nos. 40:18-23. In any event, Gijsels supplied sufficient information for the artist to go by, for inscriptions on Gijsels’s map and the copies based on it in the Blaeu-Van der Hem Atlas identify the precise positions of the forts, the village, the gallows field, the various parks with their populations, the hospital and Papenberg (Mount Papen) in the background.

Unlike most of the other paintings in the series, this scene is of an important VOC settlement, and one that had been part of the company’s Asian empire uninterruptedly since the early seventeenth century. This raises the question as to why the View of Banda Neira was included. It is probably too far-fetched to see a connection with the squabbling over the English presence in the Banda archipelago.³⁶³⁶P. van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, ed. F.W. Stapel, I.2, The Hague 1929, p. 547, note 6; ibid., II.1, 1931, pp. 194-95. Under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster that ended the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-54), the English were allowed to settle on Pulau Run, some 25 kilometres west of Neira. The VOC continued to oppose this until the early 1660s, and with the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67), the nutmeg trees on the island were destroyed and the English merchants expelled. The status quo was confirmed in the Treaty of Breda of 1667, which awarded the Banda archipelago to the Dutch.

Erlend de Groot [publication date 2026]

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

For the present painting (SK-A-4476) and six other Asian views (SK-A-4471 to 4475 and SK-A-4477)
K. Zandvliet (ed.), The Dutch Encounter with Asia 1600-1950, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2002-03, pp. 167-70

For the present painting (SK-A-4476) and six other Asian views (SK-A-4471 to 4475 and SK-A-4477)
1903, p. 10, nos. 84, 85, 86, 87, 88 (as The Dutch Settlement on Gunung Lawak near Martapura, Borneo), 89, 90; 1934, p. 9, nos. 84, 85, 86, 87, 88 (as The Dutch Settlement on Gunung Lawak near Martapura, Borneo), 89, 90; 1976, p. 664, nos. A 4471, A 4472, A 4473, A 4474, A 4475 (as View of the Dutch Settlement on Gunung Lawak near Martapura, Borneo), A 4476, A 4477; 1992, p. 102, no. A 4475

Erlend de Groot, 2026, 'workshop of Johannes Vingboons, View of Banda Neira, Moluccas, c. 1662 - c. 1663', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200110534