Dutch vessels at anchor off Ambon (Moluccan Islands) – after Louis Le Breton, 1846
€750
“Navires Hollandais sur la Rade d’Amboine (Isles Moluques)” [Dutch Vessels at anchor off Ambon (Moluccan Islands).] Lithograph by Thierry frères after a drawing by Louis Le Breton, published in Paris by Gide in 1846 as part of “Voyage au pôle Sud et dans l’Océanie sur les corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée 1837–1840,” the official account of Jules Dumont d’Urville’s second expedition to the South Pacific. Coloured by a later hand. Size: 26.5 × 32.5 cm.
This rare lithograph is based on sketches made by Louis Le Breton (1818–1866), ship’s surgeon and artist of the expedition, during the ten days in February 1839 when the Astrolabe and Zélée, under the command of Dumont d’Urville (1790–1842), lay at anchor on the roadstead of Ambon.
Several Dutch merchant vessels are shown on the anchorage. Two of them have suffered severe storm damage: their masts are broken, rigging torn, and sails ripped or furled — silent witnesses to the dangers posed by monsoon winds and tropical storms to navigation in these waters.
When the French expedition visited Ambon, the island was by then only a regional administrative centre within the Moluccas, which during the VOC period had been the seat of Dutch authority in the archipelago. The print thus records a moment of encounter between the French expedition and the weakened, yet still present, Dutch colonial maritime power in the East Indies.
Price: Euro 750,-
