View of Batavia Roads

View of the inner roadstead of Batavia, looking south towards the old city (present day Kota), offering a clear view of the Castle and the Sunda Kelapa, the Harbour Canal and the Water Castle, as well as the VOC shipyard (now VOC Galangan Café at Jalan Kakap). Also recognizable are the Town Hall (now the Jakarta History Museum) and the dome of the Dutch Church (present Taman Fatahillah). The Blue Mountains (volcanoes south of the Buitenzorg, present-day Bogor) are in the background.

At the left we see the official admiralty ship recognizable from the state’s flag and pennon, just firing a cannon, hence the gun smoke. From this guard ship, every morning after the reveille [the official trumpet call to wake up] the morning shot was fired, while in the evening after the tattoo [the official trumpet call to signal the end of the day] the evening shot was fired. Sometimes more than a hundred ships were anchored at the roadstead, until 1799 the majority ships of the VOC. Every ship had its own victualling prao which traded with the crew – one is visible near the barge at the centre-right. In the middle is a Commander’s sloop, which, to distinguish it from the others, also flies the Flag of the State.

Martinus Schouman was a renowned and prolific painter of marine landscapes. He was born in Dordrecht in the Netherlands, was a member of the Dordrecht artist’s society “Picturia” and the Royal Society of Fine Arts in Brussels and spent a few years in Batavia in the early 19th century.