Contrafactur der grossen Peffer Handell Statt Bamtam

Attributable to Georg Keller, this engraved news view shows Bantam, or Banten, the major pepper-trading port on the northwest coast of Java. Keller was a German engraver active in Frankfurt and closely associated with the illustrated print culture of news, travel, and overseas commerce in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. His work included engraved views, battle scenes, ceremonies, and images of distant cities and encounters, many of them produced for readers interested in current events and European expansion overseas. The fuller title wording records: Contrafactur der grossen Peffer Handell Statt Bamtam in der Insel Iava gelegen, davor die Hollendische Schiffart Komem: Vnd Was innen aldar Von den inwonern Begegenett, als durch die Buchstaen in der Historia erkleret Wirtdt, Anno 1597Contrafactur der grossen Peffer Handell Statt Bamtam in der Insel Iava gelegen, davor die Hollendische Schiffart Komem: Vnd Was innen aldar von den inwonern Begegenett, als durch die Buchstaen in der Historia erkleret Wirdt, Anno 1297 [i.e. 1597].

The long German title identifies Bantam as the “great pepper-trading city” of Bamtam on the island of Iava, before which the Dutch ships came. It refers to events associated with the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, undertaken in 1595–1597 under Cornelis de Houtman. Bantam was the principal Javanese port reached by the Dutch expedition and became central to early Dutch efforts to enter the Asian spice trade.The image presents Bantam as a fortified coastal settlement and a centre of commerce. Dutch ships lie offshore while boats and armed groups occupy the harbour. Within and around the town, figures gather near walls, houses, towers, and open spaces, with letters keyed to events explained in the accompanying history. The composition is not a measured city plan, but a narrative view: it turns a report of encounter, trade, conflict, and negotiation into a compact visual scene.

Pepper is central to the image’s meaning. The title calls Bantam a Peffer Handell Statt, a pepper-trading city, and the print shows the port as a destination for Dutch ships seeking direct access to Asian spices. In this sense, the view records a turning point in northern European maritime expansion, when Dutch merchants began to challenge Portuguese dominance in the East Indies and to establish their own trading networks in Southeast Asia.

The date in the title reads Anno 1297, but this is understood as an error for 1597, the year the Dutch expedition returned from the East Indies. The print was probably issued shortly afterwards, around 1597–1599, as part of the German market for news images and illustrated accounts of recent overseas events.