Caart van d’Indische zee van Cabo de goede Hoop tot Canton eerbiedig opgedragen door zyne Allerdoorlugtigste Hoogheids

The Van Keulen publishing house, In de Gekroonde Lootsman (“In the Crowned Pilot”), was founded in Amsterdam by Johannes van Keulen I in 1678 and became one of the leading Dutch firms producing maps, sea charts, atlases, and pilot books. After Johannes I and his son Gerard developed the business, it passed to Gerard’s son, Johannes van Keulen II. Johannes II is especially known for issuing the sixth and final volume of De nieuwe groote lichtende Zee-fakkel in 1753, devoted to Asian and Indian Ocean navigation. The volume brought into print closely guarded VOC hydrographic knowledge, including information derived from manuscript charts and sailing directions that had previously been restricted because of their commercial and strategic value.

This chart was issued separately in Amsterdam in 1753. Drawn on Mercator’s projection, it extends from the Cape of Good Hope across the Indian Ocean to Canton, covering the principal long-distance sailing route between southern Africa, the Indian Ocean, the East Indies, and China. Unlike an atlas chart intended for reference in a bound volume, this was a working chart for official VOC use. The chart reflects the VOC’s transition from manuscript hydrography to printed navigational charts. For much of the company’s history, charts for Asian waters were closely controlled because they contained commercially and strategically valuable information. By the mid-eighteenth century, large printed charts such as this one allowed hydrographic information to be standardised and distributed more efficiently for shipboard navigation.

The chart is known in three states. A proof state survives with a manuscript title and dedication pasted to the sheet; only one example is recorded, in Amsterdam University Library. The first printed state carries a fully engraved title and dedication and is known from examples in Utrecht University Library and the Dutch National Archives in The Hague. The second state is identical to the first printed state, but with the addition of a printed note south of Java; examples are also preserved in Utrecht University Library and the Dutch National Archives.

This chart is closely connected with Van Keulen’s Zee-fakkel vol. 6 charts for the Red Sea entrance (306), Maldives (305), and China coast (316, 317, and 387), which treat important parts of the same route system in greater detail. It also relates to the western Indian Ocean charts of the Aethiopische Zee (#465 and #467), which map the African and island approaches used by VOC vessels sailing between the Cape, East Africa, Madagascar, India, Ceylon, and the East Indies.