Batavia and Macao, Two Antique Views of the East Indies Trade, circa 1745
€ 690
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
circa 1745
Mapmaker / artist
Emanuel Bowen, engraver, attributed
Publisher
Printed for T. Woodward and others, London
Technique
Copper Engraving
Coloring
Uncolored
Sheet size
25.5 × 40 cm (10.0 × 15.7 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14394-3
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the edges of both sheets. Light foxing in the margins of both sheets. Slight wear at the corners of one of the two sheets.
About this sheet
A pair of original antique copper engraved views of the two great European trading ports of the Far East, sold together and not separately. One sheet carries two views of Batavia, now Jakarta, lettered A Prospect of the Town of BATAVIA and A View of the Citadel of BATAVIA; the other is lettered A View of the Town and Castle of Macao and keys three items beneath it, the Centurion, the Castle and the Manilla Ship. Both are wide landscape sheets of the same size, uncolored, printed on laid paper with clear plate marks. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.
The Batavia sheet carries two views one above the other, lettered A Prospect of the Town of BATAVIA and A View of the Citadel of BATAVIA. The upper shows the whole waterfront from the roadstead with the volcano behind the town and East Indiamen at anchor; the lower looks straight up the canal to the water gate of the castle, with praus and small craft in the foreground. The Macao sheet is lettered A View of the Town and Castle of Macao and keys three items beneath it, the Centurion, the Castle and the Manilla Ship. Two great ships lie in the roads with their gun ports open and a puff of smoke from a salute, Chinese junks and sampans crossing in front of them and the Portuguese town rising on its hill along the shore.
The plates were engraved for the enlarged edition of John Harris's Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, the great two volume folio collection of voyages revised by John Campbell and published in London between 1744 and 1748. The view plates are generally given to Emanuel Bowen, the royal geographer, who signed the maps in the same work. The Macao sheet records a particular moment: Commodore Anson's Centurion lying in the roads with the captured Manila galleon Nuestra Senora de Covadonga, the richest prize ever taken by a British ship. Batavia and Macao were the Dutch and the Portuguese ends of the same trade, and the two views belong together as a pair. Batavia speaks to Dutch and Indonesian history, Macao to Chinese and Portuguese history, and the Anson episode adds a naval chapter. The two sheets are the same width and hang as a pair over a desk or a long piece of furniture.
Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the edges of both sheets. Light foxing in the margins of both sheets. Slight wear at the corners of one of the two sheets.
These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
