FRANÇOIS VALENTIJN (1666-1727), FRANÇOIS VALENTIJN (1666-1727)

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JAVA ILLUSTRATED FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION (Lots 461-505) THE PROPERTY OF A LADY Likened by a nineteenth century Dutch writer to a necklace of emeralds strung along the Equator, the 13,000-odd islands of Indonesia stretch through tropical seas from Sabang in the west to Merauke in Irian Jaya in the east, a distance of more than five thousand kilometres. Near its centre lies Java, the most populous of the islands, and historically the most interesting. Here, nearly four centuries ago, after their founding of Batavia (Jakarta), the Dutch began the colonial expansion which gave them, until the Second World War, control of most of the Indonesian archipelago. During these centuries, travellers, explorers, scholars and officials in their writings have made known to the outside world something of the culture, ethnography and history of the island, and numerous naturalists have described its rich fauna and beautiful flora. Among the most celebrated of the nineteenth century naturalists was the German Franz Junghuhn, who in the Introduction to his famous book on Java (lot 478), composed while he was on furlough in Europe, expressed his longing for the island's forests adorned with everlasting green and its myriad of sweet scented flowers. Many of the important landmarks in the expanding knowledge of Java are represented in the books in this Collection, beginning with the great eighteenth century works, François Valentijn's, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën (Dordrecht, Amsterdam, 1724-6) (lot 461), and Georg Eberhard Rumpf's, Herbarium Aboinense (Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, 1741-50) (lot 462), which laid the foundation of Indonesian historical and botanical studies. Rumpf's book became generally well known, but less of the content of Valentijn's work seems to have passed into general currency, judging by the paucity of information on Java available to the British at the time of their conquest of the island in 1811. One of the officers in the British invading army, William Thorn, added something of topographical interest on Java with the publication in 1815 of his book, Memoir of the Conquest of Java (lot 465), containing fourteen uncoloured aquatints of Batavia and the northern coastal towns of the island, but it was only with the publication of Thomas Stamford Raffles's The History of Java (lot 466) in 1817 that knowledge of the island's history and culture was materially advanced. Moreover, for the first time something of the vivid colour of the Indonesian world was reflected in the beautiful aquatint plates of costume and topography by William Daniell, who, curiously, modelled the plates on a set of Javanese puppets which Raffles brought back with him from Java in 1816. Scientific knowledge of Java expanded rapidly after the British period with the appointment in 1820 of the Natural Sciences Commission under the German academic, Georg Carl Reinwardt, the first Director of Java's Botanic Garden. The publication of the Commission's materials between 1839 and 1847 in C.J. Temminck's Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Overzeesche Bezittingen (lot 474) resulted in one of the finest nineteenth century illustrated books on Indonesia, embracing its geography, ethnography, zoology and botany. The flora of Java was elaborated in Carl Ludwig Blume's Flora Javæ (Brussels, 1828-51) (lot 470) and in his even more sumptuous work, Rumphia (Leiden, 1835-49) (lot 472), with its fine hand-coloured lithograph plates. They eclipsed the pioneering work of the American naturalist, Dr Thomas Horsfield, whose herbarium was collected during his extensive travels in Java earlier in the nineteenth century but was only described in 1838-52 due to the shameful dilatoriness of the British botanist, Robert Brown (lot 473). This was followed shortly afterwards by F.A.W. Miquel's Flora Indiæ Batavæ (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Leipzig,1855-9) (lot 483), and twenty years later by Berthe Hoola van Nooten's large folio (lot 493) containing 40 splendid chromolithograph plates after her watercolour drawings of the flowers, fruits and foliage of Java collected during 1872-3 and only published because of the support of Queen Mathilde Sophie of the Netherlands. The brilliant colours of Indonesian fishes find their faithful expression in the 418 chromolithograph plates in Pieter Bleeker's Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales Néêrlandaises (lot 485), which was published in Amsterdam between 1862 and 1878. It is one of the finest books on fishes ever published and represents the work of the best known lithographic printers in the Netherlands. The equally beautiful birds of Indonesia are depicted on a smaller scale in Hermann Schlegel's De Vogels van Nederlandsche Indië (lot 487) which was published in Leiden and Amsterdam between 1863 and 1866. The topography of Java in the mid-nineteenth century is depicted with considerable accuracy in the 22 large lithograph plates in Vues de Java (lot 476) by the Belgian lithographer Paulus Lauters, after drawings by the Dutch naval officer, C.W.M. van de Velde. The work was published in 1846 by the renowned Amsterdam firm of Frans Buffa & Zonen and first appeared in Dutch. Most of the Java views are of Batavia, which is also the subject of the ten tinted lithographs printed in Leiden but published by G. Kolff & Co., Batavia, in 1859-60 after drawings by the water-engineer Charles Theodore Deeleman (lot 482). The exotic scenery of Java outside the capital of Batavia is depicted in 24 chromolithograph plates by Johan Greive Jr., after oil paintings by the Dutch merchant and planter, Abraham Salm (lot 486). The publication was undertaken by Frans Buffa & Zonen between 1865 and 1872, and the heavy cost of producing the plates to their exacting specifications is reflected in the high published price of 96 guilders. Further topographical views of the island after drawings by Jhr. J.C. Rappard are contained in one of the four volumes of W.A. van Rees and M.T.H. Perelaer's Nederlandsch-Indië, which were published in Leiden between 1881 and 1883. (lot 492). In the depiction of the peoples of Java, the coloured aquatint plates of William Daniell in Raffles's The History of Java were followed in 1829-30 by the magnificent hand coloured lithograph plates in J. J. X. Pfyffer zu Neueck's Skizzen von der Insel Java, after drawings by Johannes Schiess (lot 471). The book is one of the most beautiful ever published on Indonesia, but perhaps more interesting in terms of content and variety are Auguste van Pers's Nederlandsch Oost-Indische Typen (The Hague, 1853-62) (lot 477) and Ernest Hardouin's Java. Tooneelen uit het Leven, first published by K. Fuhri in The Hague in 1853-5 (lot 479), and subsequently by A.W. Sijthoff in Leiden. One cannot conclude without mentioning one of the greatest nineteenth century books on Java, the four elephant folios of C. Leeman's Bôrô-Boedoe op het Eiland Java (lot 490), which was published in Leiden between 1873 and 1874, its text and 393 lithograph plates based on surveys, drawings and studies by J.F.G. Brumund and F.C. Wilsen. This remarkable work of scholarship stands as a fitting monument to the early pioneers of Indonesian archaeology, but it also serves, in a sense, as a reminder of all those nineteenth century writers, artists and engravers who contributed so much to our knowledge and understanding of Java. John Bastin

FRANÇOIS VALENTIJN (1666-1727)

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FRANÇOIS VALENTIJN (1666-1727)
Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, vervattende een naaukeurige en uitvoerige verhandelinge van Nederlands Mogentheyd in die Gewesten, benevens een wydlustige beschryvinge der Moluccos, Amboina, Banda, Timor, en Solor, Java, en alle de Eylanden onder dezelve landbestieringen behoorende...Als ook...van Coromandel, Pegu, Arracan, Bengale, Mocha, Persien, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Malabar, Celebes of Macasssar, China, Japan, Tayouan of Formosa, Tonkin, Cambodia, Siam, Borneo, Bali, Kaap der Goede Hoop en van Mauritius. Dordrecht and Amsterdam: Johannes van Braam, Gerhard Onder de Linden, 1724-1726.

8 vols. in 5, 2° (334 x 210mm). Licence leaf, allegorical engraved half-title, engraved dedication title-page, engraved author's portrait, list of subscribers, 269 engraved maps and plates, 99 folding, 170 single-page, 81 in-text engravings, 12 folding letterpress tables, with part titles and indexes. Titles with engraved vignette, 2 in red and black. (Three maps disbound, minor worming to a few preliminary leaves, some slight marginal staining.) Contemporary diced half russia, raised bands, gilt floral device in 4 compartments, lettered and numbered in 2, speckled boards (bookplates removed from paste-downs, hinges rubbed, one split at head, covers scuffed).

RARE FIRST EDITION with additional plates of a primary source for the Netherlands East Indies by a minister of the Gospel at Amboyna and Banda. With 650 subscribers it was "the first book to give a comprehensive account, in text and illustration, of the peoples, places and natural history of Indonesia' (Bastin & Brommer), the plates said to be of great historical value. For Valentijn's history of Amboyna he consulted the unpublished and now lost manuscript 'Amboinsch Dierboek' by G.E. Rumpf (q.v.). The section and engravings on shells was reprinted in his Verhandeling der zee horenkens, 1754. The rare folding map of Australia in vol. III showing its known coastlines and Tasman's 1642 route round the southern tip of Tasmania and along the west coast of New Zealand is accompanied by Tasman's account and 7 in-text engravings. Bastin & Brommer, notes 11-12, calling for 215 plates only. Cordier Japonica 426-428; Cordier Indosinica 927-930; Mendelssohn 1968, p.594. (5)

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