☼☼ Click through any picture for a greatly enlarged version. All the images have been extensively background cleaned according to the "less is more" and "when in doubt, don't" philosophies of restoration. ☼☼
These extraordinary illustrations come from one of two journals kept by a German recruit to the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Jörg Franz Müller was a gunsmith from Alsace who enlisted as a midshipman aboard VOC vessels that sailed between Europe and Batavia [in Indonesia] from 1669 to 1682.
The imaginative renderings of peoples, animals and plants from Asia and Africa make up for their lack of strict accuracy with an endearing naive style. It's likely that Müller had at least seen (if not attempted to reproduce drawings remembered from) some earlier natural history works containing fanciful creatures. Although there is little around in english online about this work, there is mention of Müller being aboard vessels taking exotic creatures in cages back to Holland, so he definitely had access to specimens.
- The journal from 1681 is entitled 'Georg Franz Müller von Ruffach Reise nach Batavia' [Cod. Sang. 1311] and is accessible from the excellent St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek e-codices site with huge page images available. {click the drop-down menu next to 'Anzeige' for a thumbnail matrix} St Gallen also own Müller's second journal but it hasn't been digitised as yet.
- The Dutch National Library has an html version (with images) of a book - 'Het Oost-Indisch avontuur. Duitsers in dienst van de voc (1600-1800)' - from 2006 by Roelof van Gelder about the German recruits to the VOC. Unfortunately it is only available in Dutch and the machine translations (as usual) are fairly abysmal.
- Thanks very much to Ortelius from Cavendum a Meretricibus for finding this gem of an album.
- Previously: Most of the posts listed under the Indonesia tag relate to the Dutch East Indies Company where further background and image sources are listed.
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