Oost Indien: Wassende-Graade Paskaart, vertoonende nevens het Oostelyckste van Africa, meede de zeekusten van Asia, van C. de Bona Esperanca tot Eso, boven Iapan

Johannes van Keulen I founded the Amsterdam publishing house In de Gekroonde Lootsman in 1678 and quickly established it as a major producer of maps, nautical charts, atlases, and pilot books. This large wassende-graade paskaart, or Mercator sea chart, was first published by Pieter Goos around 1658 and later reissued by Van Keulen after he acquired Goos’s copperplates and stock. In this Van Keulen issue, the chart presents the East Indies and adjacent seas from the eastern coast of Africa to Eso above Japan.

The chart was designed for oceanic navigation. Its rhumb lines, compass roses, coastal names, island groups, soundings, and graticule organise a vast maritime region into a practical sailing chart. At the same time, its scale and decorative programme present the East Indies as a broad commercial and imperial field, populated by ships, local figures, and scenes of encounter. The Australian coast is shown through a sequence of Dutch discoveries. 't Landt van Eendracht recalls Dirk Hartog’s 1616 landfall in the Eendracht; other names preserve the voyages of Frederick de Houtman, the Leeuwin, Jan Carstensz. and Willem Joosten van Colster, Pieter Nuyts in the 't Gulden Zeepaert, Gerrit Frederiksz. de Witt, and Abel Tasman. The label Hollandia Nova: detecta A° 1644 links the chart to Tasman’s later voyage and to the consolidation of northern Australian geography in Dutch cartography.

The chart’s imagery is also important. Large vignettes show local peoples, animals, coastal life, and scenes of trade and encounter, while ships cross the surrounding seas. These decorative elements are not merely ornamental: they frame the East Indies as a region of commerce, navigation, wealth, and cultural difference. The lower title and scale cartouches reinforce the chart’s dual function as both a working sea chart and a display object.

This chart is closely connected with the related untitled vellum chart (266), Van Keulen’s broader East Indies chart (83), and Doncker’s East Indies charts (33, 234, and 347) provide useful comparisons for Dutch hydrography in the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, and northern Hollandia Nova. Robert Dudley’s chart of Australia’s western and northern coasts (172) provides a further comparison for the Dutch discovery geography of Australia.