Gezigten uit Neêrlands iut Indië, naar de natuur geteekend enbeschreven

An exquisitely-produced view book of the ports and peoples of the Dutch East Indies. Van de Velde's remarkably handsome book, produced at the famous lithographic workshop of Frans Buffa & Sons in Amsterdam, is a benchmark in the development of such works. The superb plates, with captions in Dutch and French, share much in common with other early mid-century works of voyages, especially those produced on the continent - one is reminded of the views associated with the near-contemporary account of the second Dumont d'Urville circumnavigation, by artists including Sainson, for example. They were lithographed by the master Paulus Lauters (1806-1876), who had earlier worked with Goubau in Brussels and been appointed to the Royal School for Engraving in that city in 1836. His earlier work on Bénoit's Voyage à Surinam used more traditional engraved plates, but lithography was considered to be his true métier.

The book is the magnum opus of Charles William Meredith Van de Velde (1818-1898), who took the original sketches while still a very young junior officer in the Dutch Navy, having travelled to the East Indies to take up a position at the topographical office at Jakarta. He remained in the region for over a decade before returning to Europe for his health, and later made a tour of the Holy Lands, publishing his Narrative of a Journey through Syria and Palestine (1854) and a renowned 'Map of the Holy Land' in London.

For such a young artist, the views in the present book are remarkably accomplished. Some of the earliest date from his time on the Triton - a Dutch corvette which had earlier claimed part of New Guinea - and show the great set-pieces of his voyage to the region, including passage of the Sunda Strait, views in Java and the roadstead of Batavia, the sky bristling with the masts of a whole host of European and local ships. The plates relating to this major port are some of the most detailed and interesting of any published in this era, when Dutch power and influence was waning but still paramount.

Many of the more interesting of the plates relate to Van de Velde's journeys overland, not least because he was adept at figuring the local customs and landscape. Most significant is his record of a journey he took with the Resident at Bantam, including his description of their ascent of the crater of Pulu-Sari, the accompanying text recording that they travelled to the very mouth of the lava flow, cheerfully oblivious to the urgent warnings of their Javanese guides (plate 16). Although almost half of the book is devoted to places in Java, Van de Velde travelled widely, notably making two important early views in Timor, a major series on the Moluccas and Celebes, as well as Borneo, Bintang and Padang.

Copies are genuinely scarce, with the only firmly recorded copy in Australia being that originally owned by David Scott Mitchell himself. Undated on the title-page, the work is said to have been completed by 1845 (or perhaps 1846), and is known to have been issued in 12 instalments, each with either four or five plates and the accompanying text: a reviewer in 1844 noted that about half had then been published.