A CLUSTER OF V.O.C. COPPER COINAGE, DATED 1752

ARTEFACTS FROM THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY by Lodewijk J. Wagenaar This part of the sale is dedicated to objects of the Dutch East India Company, the trading company formed in 1602 to purchase spices and subsequently other goods in the Indonesian archipelago for customers in Europe. A bible with the monogram of the Zeeland Chamber; several cannon with the monogram V.O.C. A, cast by P. Seest in 1764 and 1766; a sabre bearing the date 1757 and the initials V.O.C. A; a document from 1689, detailing the salaries of the Dutch East India Company's personnel, and signed by Pieter van Dam, the Company's lawyer.....Just a small choice from the wealth of documents, arms, wax seals, tobacco boxes, books, prints and porcelain which, in one way or another are associated with the world's first 'multinational', the V.O.C., (Vereenigd Oostindische Companie), which literally means the Laudable East India Company or more formally, the United East India Company (of what is now the Netherlands). The V.O.C. was formed in 1602 to purchase spices in the Indonesian archipelago for customers in Europe. These spices were sold at auctions which were held several times a year in Holland in the various 'chambers' of the company. The company was a fusion of several overseas Far Eastern trading posts, each of which had been warranted an independent position as a working company in the patent of 1602. It was governed in Holland by the 'Heren XVII', a college of 17 magistrates which acted as its board of directors and was assisted in its tasks by the Company's highest official, who bore the title of Advocate. The six regional Dutch Chambers, which jointly funded and administered in Holland the international business of the Company, were all represented on this central board of directors: Amsterdam with six delegates, Zeeland with four. The four smaller Chambers each had one delegate and also occupied the seventeenth seat by rotation. The central board delineated the general policy of the V.O.C., which was then laid down in resolutions. Of course the local boards in Cape Town, Batavia, Fort Zeelandia and elsewhere, were allowed to deliberate in advance about the policies and measures which served best their own local economic interests. The complexity of the matter, however, made the Advocate - who was also the advocate of the Amsterdam Chamber - an indispensable person. It was he who prepared the meetings of the 'Heren XVII' and who played an important part in implementing their resolutions. That is also why the Company's payroll bears his signature: Pieter van Dam. He knew the company like the back of his own hand, which served him well in writing his 'Beschrijvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie' (Description of the East India Company), which was long kept a secret. With the means of communication available in those days it was impossible to control the various trading posts and offices from the Low Countries. Detailed rules and regulations, plus the obligation to report on all its activities nevertheless made the company an efficiently managed corporation, which was even capable of governing large areas, such as the Indonesian Archipelago, Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope. Cities like Batavia, Colombo and Cape of Good Hope were colonial centres whose main purpose goal was to serve the interests of the company. These settlements had very mixed ethnic populations. Europeans in the service of the company usually signed a five-year contract, which was often renewed for a second or third term. Similar to today's auctions the different chambers of the V.O.C. in The Netherlands used to publish catalogues of auction lists to inform its customers of the goods that had successfully arrived back in Europe for sale. From the V.O.C.'s very first operations in Asia its ships came back loaded with a variety of articles; although, until the beginning of the 18th Century, the emphasis was on spices. In the 18th Century, tea, textiles and porcelain became increasingly important, but spices always remained the most profitable product; especially those on which the V.O.C. held the monopoly. Pepper was not a monopoly product, nor was porcelain from China. These and other colonial goods were imported for the European market by the East India Companies of The Netherlands and other European countries. The V.O.C. imported tens of millions of pieces of Chinese porcelain into Holland in the years 1670-1795 the vast number which completely dwarfs the import of porcelain from Japan in the same period. After 1639 the V.O.C. was the only trading company in Europe to have its own trading post in Japan, so that every piece of lacquer ware, porcelain and other goods imported afterwards must have come to Europe in the holds of Dutch East Indiamen unless it had already been sold in one of the great Asian entrepots to another company. Although porcelain objects from China and Japan are an important part of today's auctions of Oriental Export Art, porcelain constituted only a modest part of the V.O.C.'s wide range of imports. The administrators of the V.O.C. Chambers of Enkhuizen, Hoorn, Amsterdam, Delft, Rotterdam and Zeeland would probably have been greatly surprised to see the present auction at Christie's advertised as a 'V.O.C. auction.' Viewers will in vain look for a single peppercorn, a yard of cotton, or one leaf of tea. What they will see is a large number of objects which were once brought or ordered from the East by individuals, such as furniture made in Indonesia or 'Chine de Commande'. Or objects which once were used in the offices and garrisons of the colonies, such as a wax seal or a sabre. Although these objects are not representative of the V.O.C.'s trading assortment, they can tell us a lot about the company's presence and activities in Asia. The views in this sale of the V.O.C.'s wharfs in Middelburg and Amsterdam reflect the interest shown in 17th and 18th century Holland in the 'Laudable Company', with its East India Houses, its warehouses and wharfs. The Chinese Export Porcelain plates depicting the roadstead at the Cape of Good Hope are good examples of the demand in Europe for pictures to satisfy the curiosity in the topography of faraway and exotic places. Such plates may once have formed part of a collection of far-away rarities, such as boxes made of tropical woods, a nautilus shell or an ostrich egg, a printed travel report of an Ambassadorial journey to China recorded by the Dutch envoy Nieuwhof, and many other objects from exotic places. The items in this unique V.O.C. sale are all fragments, objects and documents which have lost all organic links with the collection - an armoury, a private dwelling, an archive - to which they once belonged. These links can never be restored - such is the course of history. So much is known about the history of the Dutch East India Company, however, that it is not difficult for us to interpret these objects and place them in their original context within the 17th and 18th century auction chambers of the 'Laudable Company', and in the more general context of the development of European taste. Lodewijk J. Wagenaar is curator of the Amsterdam Historical Museum and adviser to the Dutch Period Museum, Colombo, Sri Lanka. His recent publication Sporen van de V.O.C. in Nederland is to be followed by a book on the V.O.C. in Asia. In January 1994, Lodewijk Wagenaar will receive a Doctorate for his thesis on a V.O.C. Community in Ceylon in 1760. V.O.C. ARTEFACTS AND RELATED OBJECTS

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A CLUSTER OF V.O.C. COPPER COINAGE, DATED 1752

Lot Essay

These coins were salvaged from the wreck of the 'Bredenhof' which went down in the Mozambique Channel in 1753.
'The Bredenhof Bullion', Christie's Amsterdam, 4 December 1986

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