Jacob Dirk van Herwerden was born in Zutphen in the Netherlands and went to Indonesia as a sailor in 1823. He joined the civil service and became Controleur of Ngrawa, Java in 1834. From 1835 to 1840 he was Assistant Resident of Ngrawa, and from 1840 to 1844 Assistant Resident of Probolinggo in East Java. He became Resident of Madiun in 1844, a post he held for the next 4 years. He returned to The Hague in 1848 and spent the rest of his life working up paintings from sketches collected during his time in Indonesia and writing about colonial reform.

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