Indies Gallery - Original Antique Maps, Prints and Books

07/09/2024

D'r uit! Indië moet bevrijd ( FOR SALE )

( translated: Get Out! The Indies Must be Liberated )

This 1945 recruiting poster by the Dutch artist Nico Broekman shows a Japanese soldier being booted out of Indonesia, and the caption, "Get Out! The Indies Must Be Liberated." During World War II, Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies in early 1942. After the surrender, a large number of Dutch submarines and some aircraft escaped to Australia and continued to fight as part of Australian units. In the course of the war, Indonesian nationalists supported by the Japanese took over parts of the country. Allied troops invaded Borneo in July 1945, bringing with them a restoration of Dutch colonial rule. The Dutch fought the Indonesian nationalists for the next four years, before finally granting independence in 1949.

Size: 90 by 60 cm.
Price: 850 USD.
Very suitable for framing

Indies Gallery Collection

We buy and sell antique maps, prints, books and photographs, dating from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. With over 25 years of experience in collecting and trading, our total inventory includes over 12.000 authentic antiques. Whether you're an experienced collector or a first-time buyer, we offer an extensive collection in all price ranges.

Apart from private collectors, our clients include institutions such as the National Museum of Singapore, National Library of Singapore, National Library of Australia, The Louvre Abu Dhabi, University of Leiden, and many others.

https://antiquemapsindonesia.com/

16/08/2024

Tajen Bali ( FOR SALE )

A rare 1938 portrait of a Balinese man with his rooster, by the famous artist Willem G Hofker, who travelled through the archipelago, ending up in Bali. During this trip he made drawings and paintings of Balinese subjects that were used as advertisements to promote travelling to Indonesia. (Indies Gallery Collection)

Cockfighting, known locally as "tajen" or “sabung ayam” is not merely a pastime in Java and Bali; it is a cultural institution deeply intertwined with the island’s spiritual beliefs, community cohesion, and competitive spirit. Today, it is a familiar image of wicker baskets lining roads around Indonesia, housing roosters as they are toughened up with traffic sounds.

https://antiquemapsindonesia.com/

14/04/2024

Bali Art Deco Travel Poster ~ Circa 1930 ( FOR SALE )
One in a series of Indonesian travel posters produced in the 1930s by the Information Bureau of the Netherlands Indies. This ethnic, atmospheric, Art Deco-inspired image depicts Mount Batur, one of two active volcanoes on the island.
It is hard to imagine that around the year 1900 only a hundred people visited Bali each month to stay on the island, and an expedition required bringing one’s own horses and translators. If people wanted to sleep in a western style bed, they also had to bring that themselves.
For people living in the west, a visit to the far ‘East Indies’ took months, and was a costly undertaking. Nowadays, around 17 million people visit Indonesia annually, of which 40% visit the island of Bali.
Read my full article on 'Early Travels to the ‘Dutch East Indies’ in the link below.
https://www.nowjakarta.co.id/early-travels-to-the-dutch.../

08/03/2024

GARUDA INDONESIAN AIRWAYS

Size - 100 by 70 cm / very suitable for framing.
Price - Upon request.

This is an authentic poster and not a modern reproduction.

The Emergence of an Indonesian National Airline

With the signing of the Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference in 1949, the Netherlands was required to surrender all assets of the Netherlands East Indies government to the government of the United States of Indonesia, including the KLM-IIB (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij- Inter-Insulair Bedrijf) airline. KLM-IIB was a subsidiary of KLM that had taken over the K.N.I.L.M (Koninklijke Nederlandshindische Luchtvaart Maatschappij) private airline, which had existed since 1928 in the Netherlands East Indies.

On 21 December 1949, negotiations were held between the Indonesian government with KLM about the creation of a national Indonesian airline. President Soekarno decided upon ‘Garuda Indonesian Airways’ (GIA) as the new airline's name. In preparation for the eventual transfer over to Indonesian airline staff, KLM provided its own staff on temporary assignment to transfer skills to the new Indonesian airline staff. Thus the first Director-General of GIA was a Dutchman, Dr E. Konijnenburg.

The first Garuda Indonesia Airways (GIA) Flight

A day after the recognition of the sovereignty of the Republic of Indonesia by the Netherlands on 28 December 1949, two Dakota (DC-3) aircraft left the Kemayoran airport in Jakarta for Yogyakarta to meet President Soekarno and bring him to Jakarta, the newly reinstated capital of the Republic of Indonesia. GIA has since become known as Garuda Indonesia.

www.IndiesGallery.com

05/03/2024

Extremely rare poster of KLM's route map from Amsterdam to Batavia, a 14.350 km long route. KLM proudly advertised that it took five and a half days to reach the Dutch East Indies. Compared to 6 weeks on a ship, this sure made a difference.

Very suitable for framing.

Size - 95 by 65 cm.
Year - 1932
Price - Upon request

04/02/2024

Superb Bird of Paradise ~ Year 1887

The superb bird-of-paradise is a species of the Paradisaeidae (bird-of-paradise) family. The species has an unusually low population of females, and competition among males for mates is intensely fierce. This has led the species to have one of the most elaborate courtship displays in the avian world.

Often referred to as the ‘father of bird study in Australia’, the English ornithologist John Gould created several esteemed collections of bird illustrations over his long career. He was the most prolific artist and publisher of ornithological subjects of all time.

In nineteenth century Europe Gould’s name was as well known as Audubon’s was in North America. But unlike Audubon, whose life’s work focused on one region, Gould traveled widely and employed other artists to help create his lavish hand-colored lithographic folios. Nearly 3,000 lithographs were created during the span of his long ​career.

The Birds of New Guinea and the adjacent Papuan Islands.

The Birds of New Guinea was Gould’s last full-scale work, left incomplete on his death in 1881. Gould completed twelve of the twenty-five parts, and the task of finishing the project fell to Richard Bowdler Sharpe, a superbly qualified successor, who had been Gould’s colleague, assistant and friend.

Price - Upon request.
Size - 55 by 38 cm.

Read more on our website.

https://indiesgallery.com/product/1525-superb-bird-of-paradise-lophorina-atra-by-john-gould

02/02/2024

440 year old map of Southeast Asia.

This attractive and much sought-after late 16th century map of South-east Asia by Abraham Ortelius comes from the famous and important Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The Theatrum was the first uniformly-sized, systematic collection of maps ever produced and hence is generally referred to as the first true atlas although the term was not used until 25 years later by Gerard Mercator.

‘Indiae Orientalis Insularumque Adiacentium Typus’ by Ortelius is a real milestone in the cartography of Southeast Asia and the East Indian Islands. Representing the synthesis of cartographic knowledge of the region for the first seventy years of the sixteenth century and, most importantly, brought that knowledge to a very wide audience. This map must be considered one of the gems of any private collection of maps of the region and, somewhat surprisingly, is still available for collectors at a reasonable price.

This unique map showed in the late 16th century the best readily available information on Southeast Asia and the East Indian Islands from Italian, Portuguese and Spanish sources. Extending from Portuguese India in the west, through China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the East Indies (Indonesian archipelago), including New Guinea, to the Northwest coast of America.

Sumatra and Java are shown heavily distorted in shape together with the principal spice islands, but the emergent shape of Borneo and the Philippines is apparent as well as the general configuration of the East Indian archipelago. Java is shown as an island but with a greatly inflated shape and no topographical information along the south coast, separated from Beach, a presumed promontory on the southern or ‘fifth’ continent Australia.

Borneo is mapped in the place of the fictitious ‘Java Minor’ that frequently appeared at that latitude on the ‘modern’ Ptolemaic maps of the region, although only the part of Borneo north of the equator is shown to the west of a barely recognizable Celebes (Sulawesi), where no hint is given of the very distinctive peninsula geography of the island.

On the other hand, the clove-producing islands of Ternate, Tidore and their neighbours to the south, Machian and Bacam, are correctly located to the west of the easily identifiable island of Gilolo (Halmahera) with its four distinctive peninsulas. Buru island is located correctly to the west of the main Ambon island, now called Seram, and although the ‘Bird’s Head’ part of New Guinea (Irian Jaya) is shown as three islands, the outline of the coasts, particularly the north coast, strongly suggests that Ortelius based his information on actual charts of the coasts.

Gebe island, where the French obtained the first clove and nutmeg seedlings they smuggled out in the eighteenth century and which currently contains one of Indonesia’s largest nickel mines, is correctly located on the equator between Gilolo and New Guinea.

Size - 50 by 38 cm.
Price - Upon request.

www.IndiesGallery.com

22/01/2024

Read our latest article for NOW Jakarta & Bali magazine. We present a few works from our collection by Willem G Hofker. Hofker’s artistic journey led him to the archipelago, where he dedicated a significant portion of his life to capturing the diverse aspects of Indonesia through his art. Hofker’s contributions to Indonesian art are celebrated to this day. His legacy lives on through the continued appreciation of his works, which are displayed in museums and private collections worldwide.

Sake Santema from Indies Gallery presents a few works from his collection by Willem G Hofker, whose life and work became deeply intertwined with Indonesia.

18/10/2023

An Important Early Dutch Sea-Chart of Australia, the East Indies, and the Eastern Part of the Indian Ocean, first issued in 1675. ( FOR SALE )

The chart is east-oriented and covers the region from the Indian subcontinent to Japan in the east and to Hollandia Nova, or Australia, in the south. Several ships- three European sailing sloops and one Chinese junk-are braving the waters, which are criss-crossed by rhumb lines.

In the lower left is a spectacularly decorative cartouche embodying the exoticized way that Europeans viewed the Far East. An Asian princess looks out from the window of a pagoda-like structure, a monkey at her side. She gazes out at a man in formal robes who is shaded by an umbrella held by a dark-skinned boy. Behind them, a turbaned man smokes a pipe. At his feet are the spoils of the East Indies trade: baskets full of goods, textiles, another pipe (held by a parrot), and tea.

The chart includes much of the coastline of what would come to be Australia. The coastlines of Western Australia are based on early Dutch discoveries, mostly from shipwrecks, and the surveys of Abel Tasman during his two milestone voyages of the early 1640's. A note is on the southwest coast of Australia that explains that this was the area charted by the Leeuwin in 1622. The southernmost discoveries are shown with reference to the voyage of the Gulden Zeepaert, commanded by Frans Thijsz, in 1627. The Gulden Zeepaert was aiming for Batavia but ventured too far south. After finding his bearings, Thijsz explored farther east and named the land he saw Nuytsland in honor of Pieter Nuyts, the highest-ranking East India Company (VOC) official on board.

Size - 445 x 545 mm.
Price - 8800 USD.

www.IndiesGallery.com

26/05/2023

Early Travels to the ‘Dutch East Indies’

For NOW! Jakarta & Bali Magazine - May and June edition

Today’s travellers may feel envious of those who visited Bali back when it was ‘untouched’, but do not realise the difficulty of not only getting to the island but also the challenges once they arrived. Sake Santema, owner of antiques dealer Indies Gallery, explores early travels to Indonesia and Bali, complemented by prints and images of the day.

Read the full article by Indies Gallery on the NOW! Jakarta Website in the link below.

A glimpse of early travels in Indonesia and Bali, written by Sake Santema, owner of antiques dealer Indies Gallery.

24/05/2023

Balinese Temple by Willem Gerard Hofker, year 1938

Rare print showing a temple in Bali, by the famous Dutch artist Willem G. Hofker. This print, published in the year 1938, was issued by the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM) for tourist traveling to Bali. This is a genuine antique print, and not a modern reproduction. Very suitable for framing. Singed in the print: W.G. Hofker, year 1938

Year - 1938
Size - 26 by 17 cm.
Price - 200 USD.

It is hard to imagine that around the year 1900 only a hundred people visited Bali each month to stay on the island, and an expedition required bringing one’s own horses and translators. If people wanted to sleep in a western style bed, they also had to bring that themselves. For people living in the west, a visit to the far ‘East Indies’ took months, and was a costly undertaking. Nowadays, around 17 million people visit Indonesia annually, of which 40% visit the island of Bali.

The history of tourism to Indonesia can be traced back centuries ago when kingdoms welcomed merchants from China and the Middle East to their ....
... full description on our website in the link below.

https://indiesgallery.com/product/2042-balinese-temple-by-willem-gerard-hofker-year-1938

Indies Gallery Collection

We buy and sell antique maps, prints, books and photographs, dating from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. With over 25 years of experience in collecting and trading, our total inventory includes over 9500 authentic antiques. Whether you're an experienced collector or a first-time buyer, we offer an extensive collection in all price ranges.

Apart from private collectors, our clients include institutions such as the National Museum of Singapore, National Library of Singapore, National Library of Australia, The Louvre Abu Dhabi, University of Leiden, and many others.

23/05/2023

Rare map of the Cenderawasih Bay in West Papua, New Guinea, Indonesia. Published in the year 1869 by Carl Benjamin Hermann von Rosenberg, a German naturalist who published a few books and several articles on the East Indies, where he describes the geography, zoology, linguistics and ethnography of the islands.

The German zoologist and geographer Von Rosenberg's (1817-1888) arrived in the Dutch East Indies in 1840, and was immediately sent to Padang on Sumatra, in order to assist Franz Junghuhn. He travelled widely to places that were then little known between 1840-1870, exploring areas in Sumatra, the Moluccas, and certain regions of Teluk Cendrawasih (Geelvink Bay) of West Irian. He concentrates mainly on the natural environment of each region he visited, but also includes special sections on the people and their customs. The book where is map come from on New Guinea is one of his best known publications, containing beautiful plates.

Cenderawasih Bay,

Cenderawasih Bay is a large bay to the northwest of the Indonesian province of Papua, north of the province of Central Papua, and east of the province of West Papua, between the Bird's Head Peninsula and the mouth of the Mamberamo River. The bay is more than 300 kilometers wide. The coastline from Manokwari, in the northwest of the bay, to Cape d'Urville at the mouth of the Mamberamo is more than 700 kilometers long. To the south, the Wandammen peninsula heads north into the bay. Important places along the coast are Manokwari, Ransiki, Wasior and Nabire. The Wamma River, Tabai River, Warenai River, and Wapoga River empty into the Bay.

Size - 50 by 40 cm.
Year - 1869
Price - Check it on our website

https://indiesgallery.com/product/2041-kaart-der-grote-geelvinkbaai-by-h-von-rosenberg-year-1869-cenderawasih-bay

This is a genuine antique map, and not a modern reproduction.