Support The fine, plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved and there are selvedges at the top and bottom. Judging by the crack pattern parallel to the top, left and right edges and in the centre, the bars of the original strainer were approx. 4.5-5.5 cm wide and the vertical crossbar approx. 6 cm.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the edge of the canvas at the top, over the bottom tacking edge and up to the ones on the left and right. The first, dark orange layer is followed by a reddish-brown layer.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography revealed lines throughout the landscape. Straight, parallel lines in a dry medium indicate the position and height of the two fences and the buildings. Freer curved lines, in both a dry and liquid medium, are visible in the hills, trees and foreground details.
Paint layers The paint extends partially up to the edge of the canvas at the top, over the bottom tacking edge and up to the ones on the left and right. The blues, greys and broad white areas of the sky were applied first, wet in wet. After the bluish hills had been laid in up to the middle ground, the darker passages in the landscape left and right of the fence were added. The water was brushed up to the riverbank and the strip of land in the foreground was executed. The landscape and details were rendered, including the trees and bushes, followed by the buildings and fences. In the land along the water’s edge some ground was left exposed. The river was finished with squiggly lines to indicate small waves and the figures were placed last. The painting technique is direct and fine brushstrokes with very little, slight impasto are visible throughout.
Laurent Sozzani [publication date 2026]

Good. The paint is slightly abraded, especially in the middle ground. The greens of the trees and bushes have turned brownish. The varnish is uneven and has yellowed.

For the present painting (SK-A-4475) and six other Asian views (SK-A-4471 to 4474 and SK-A-4476 and 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-4475

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]

This view of a Dutch lodge shows a site on the far side of a river. The main stone building in the middle is the office, while those along the perimeter fence are warehouses and stables. The inscription identifies the subject as the trading post of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) at ‘Lawec’ in Cambodia. The same structure is depicted very schematically in a watercolour by Johannes Vingboons inscribed ‘Eavweck Hooft Stadt van Cambodia’ (Eavweck, capital of Cambodia),²⁷²⁷Beudeker Atlas, The 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. 133. The name of the place was quite often misspelled. where it is on the edge of a city. The inscriptions on both the painting and the watercolour refer to Khum Peam Lvek on the Mekong river, not far from Oudong, the capital at the time.²⁸²⁸M. Gosselink, Land in zicht: Vingboons tekent de wereld van de 17de eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal) 2007, p. 133. However, the size of the city in the watercolour and its location by a river with several tributaries – neither of which can be seen here – suggest that this might in fact be a depiction of Phnom Penh, the present capital, which lies 40 kilometres further south on the Mekong. It is unclear why Vingboons decided to expand the detail of the lodge and omit the city altogether. There is no trading or activity going on. The figures in the foreground are not doing anything special, and no one is stirring on the site of the lodge. Notwithstanding its classical gateway by the water’s edge, the complex looks run down. This is certainly no advertisement for the glory of the VOC in Asia, unlike the Bengali factories painted some two years later by Hendrik van Schuylenburgh.²⁹²⁹See SK-A-4282 and SK-A-4283.

The VOC occupied sites near Khum Peam Lvek intermittently between 1620 and 1667.³⁰³⁰P. van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, ed. F.W. Stapel, II.1, The Hague 1931, pp. 348-55. The main trading products were deer and manta ray skins, which were sold on to Japan. The first trading post in Cambodia was founded in 1620 but was abandoned within a couple of years, and the second one, which was built in 1636, burned down two years later.³¹³¹H.P.N. Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos: Verzameling van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670, The Hague 1917, p. 134. In 1643 the senior merchant Harmen Broeckman wrote to the governors of the VOC in Batavia to complain that ‘our lodge is rough and poor, surrounded by a light bamboo fence’.³²³²H.P.N. Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos: Verzameling van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670, The Hague 1917, p. 346. That same year the VOC employees were murdered and the complex was looted and destroyed by the local population assisted by the Portuguese.³³³³H.P.N. Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos: Verzameling van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670, The Hague 1917, pp. 348-49. A punitive expedition that the VOC sent up the Mekong in the summer of 1644 achieved little, and it was not until late 1656 that relations with Cambodia were mended. The Dutch bought the almost uninhabitable English lodge, and the ruler of Cambodia gave permission for a new one to be built on the site,³⁴³⁴H.P.N. Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos: Verzameling van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670, The Hague 1917, pp. 360-62. The walls of the English lodge consisted of bamboo mats, and the warehouse was made of manure and mud. though this did not happen. The English accommodations were demolished and abandoned in 1659.³⁵³⁵F. Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost Indiën, vervattende een naauwkeurige en uitvoerige verhandelinge van Nederlands mogentheyd in die gewesten, III.2, Dordrecht/Amsterdam 1726, p. 38. It was not until 1664 that the next VOC ship sailed for Cambodia.³⁶³⁶H.P.N. Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos: Verzameling van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670, The Hague 1917, pp. 386-91. A new lodge was founded in 1665 on the site of the earlier Dutch ones,³⁷³⁷H.P.N. Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos: Verzameling van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670, The Hague 1917, p. 392. but it did not last for long. The curtain finally came down in 1667 when the complex was plundered by Chinese soldiers, the buildings were set on fire and the VOC employees were killed.³⁸³⁸H.P.N. Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos: Verzameling van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670, The Hague 1917, pp. 446-47; M. Gosselink, Land in zicht: Vingboons tekent de wereld van de 17de eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal) 2007, p. 133.

Clearly, then, the stone lodge depicted here never existed. There is, though, a remarkable similarity to a print in an anonymous publication of 1669 relating the history of the trading post between 1635 and 1644 (fig. a). It too shows a double-fronted main building, but made of wood and standing on posts, with a wavy frontage that gives it an exotic look. The poles suggest that this is probably an artist’s impression of a plan for the new lodge of 1658 that took account of the flooding that resulted from the Mekong breaking its banks each year.³⁹³⁹The VOC had asked the ruler of Cambodia for permission to build a stone lodge in 1657, but in 1658 a merchant called Indijck advised a timber building because flooding often left the site under 6 feet of water, so it would be better to raise the lodge on pillars; see H.P.N. Muller, De Oost-Indische Compagnie in Cambodja en Laos: Verzameling van bescheiden van 1636 tot 1670, The Hague 1917, p. 366. The lodge in the Rijksmuseum painting appears to be a simplified version of this.

Erlend de Groot [publication date 2026]

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

For the present painting (SK-A-4475) and six other Asian views (SK-A-4471 to 4474 and SK-A-4476 and 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-4475) and six other Asian views (SK-A-4471 to 4474 and SK-A-4476 and 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 the Dutch Lodge at Khum Peam Lvek or Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 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/200110533