Paskaart van de Eylanden Cheuxan Lowang en alle desselfs onderhoorige Eylande met alle dieptens, droogtens en ankergronden, geleegen aen de kust van China strekkende van C. Avarellas of Montagne tot aan Lingpo

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.

The Zee-fakkel included this sea chart which depicts the islands and coastal waters around Cheuxan, or Zhoushan, and Lowang, near the Ningbo region on the coast of China. It extends from C. Avarellas or Montagne to Lingpo, and covers the waters around the mouth of Hangzhou Bay. The chart is oriented with north to the right and west at the top, and gives detailed practical information on islands, depths, shallows, reefs, drying banks, anchorages, and coastal approaches. The chart formed part of the China-coast material in the 1753 Zee-fakkel. Its annotations preserve working navigational knowledge gathered from VOC experience and older sources. One note states that part of the coast was still known only from older charts and required correction; another describes the route toward Lingpo/Ningbo and the trading city of Hangzhou. These details show the mixture of practical observation, inherited geography, and uncertainty that shaped European charting of this restricted coastal region.

Zhoushan was important for navigation along the China coast and for access to Ningbo and Hangzhou Bay. The chart also includes Powto, or Mount Putuo, one of China’s sacred Buddhist mountains, located on an island in the Zhoushan archipelago. Its inclusion reflects both the cultural significance of the site and its usefulness as a coastal landmark for mariners. The chart should be read in the context of restricted VOC hydrography. The 1753 Zee-fakkel vol. 6 was produced for use aboard VOC ships and was not intended for ordinary commercial circulation. The chart’s careful recording of anchorages, fresh-water sources, fishing villages, guard houses, reefs, shoals, and safe passages reflects the practical needs of mariners operating along a coast where European trade was tightly controlled and access beyond Canton was politically sensitive.

Within the collection, it forms a useful group with Van Keulen’s other China-coast charts in the collection, especially the Amoy/Xiamen and Quemoy chart (316) and the Pescadores/Penghu chart (317). Together, these charts show the navigational and commercial importance of the maritime corridor linking Fujian, Taiwan, the Pescadores, Zhoushan, Ningbo, and the VOC’s wider Asian trading network. The large VOC chart from the Cape of Good Hope to Canton (270) provides the broader route context, placing the China coast within the long-distance passage from southern Africa across the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia to Canton. Leen Helmink provides a transcription of the Dutch annotations on this chart here.