The Rarest of the Pre-Tasman Sea Charts of Australia and Southeast Asia
Rare first state of this important early sea chart of the eastern part of the Indian Ocean (Oost Indien), by Arnold Colom, from Colom's Zee Atlas Ofte Water-Wereldt.
The map includes a marvelous early depiction of Australia, as well as a fine treatment of Southeast Asia, include curious treatment of the Philippine Islands and Formosa.
This is the last of the great sea charts of the region prior to the additions of the discoveries of Abel Tasman. Colom's chart would later be acquired first by Hendrick Doncker and later by the Van Keuelen family, with revisions of the original copper plate for nearly 40 years and a total of 5 states. Colom's copper plate would first be acquired by Hendrick Doncker, who changed the name in the cartouche and published the chart otherwise unchanged sometime between 1675 and 1678. Doncker would later cut down the plate for use in his Nieuwe Groote Vermeerderde Zeeatlas 1676-1688. In 1688 Doncker updated the plate, adding details in northern coast of Australia, revising the cartouche and adding a scale of miles. Finally, after Doncker's death, the map was reissued by Van Keulen with the title changed to Oosterdeel van Oost Indien Streckende van Ceilon tot Iapon en tot Landrone . . .
An Early Outline of Australia
Colom includes a fine depiction chronicling the Dutch voyages that tentatively sailed along the western coast of the continent. The information for portions of the coasts in New Guinea and northern Queensland, Australia come from the voyage of the Dutch vessel Duyfken in 1605-06. Under the command of Willem Janszoon, the Duyfken explored the eastern shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria, just below the Cape York Peninsula, a venture which was famously the first recorded European contact with Australia.
Further west is G.F. de Wits Landt, which refers to the 1628 voyage of Gerrit Fredericsz De Wit to the western coast of Australia. Below is t’Landt van d’Eendracht ondect Ao.1616. The Eendracht was blown off course en route to the East Indies in that year. It was commanded by Dirk Hartog and Hartog’s landing was the first recorded European landing on the western coast of Australia. It is marked here as well, Dirk Hartogs ree. The crew commemorated their discovery by erecting a post with a pewter dish inscribed with their ship’s information—the earliest physical record that historians have of any European landing in Australia.
Slightly west, out to sea, is a tiny geographic feature called Trial. These refer to the rocks struck in the dead of night by the English ship Trial. The survivors of the wreck managed to sail in two small craft to Batavia in July 1622 and report the dangerous, but hard to locate, obstructions.
Farther south, Colom has also included other Dutch voyages. Houtmans Abrolhos refers to the voyage of Jacob d’Edel, in the Amsterdam, along with Frederik de Houtman in the Dordrecht, which came within sight of the western coast and called the stretch of land which they callled d’Edelsland. The Houtmans Abrolhos are an archipelago, as shown here, named for the navigator who sighted them, or at least it was Houtman who reported the islands to the VOC. The name Houtmans Abrolhos, as used on this chart, was first used in Hessel Gerritszoon’s 1627 chart Caert van't Landt van d'Eendracht. Also included on Gerritszoon’s chart is the shoal sighted by and named for the Tortelduyf, which is labeled here.
Along the southern coast, ‘t Landt vande Leeuwin det 1622 is named for the Leeuwin, whose crew charted some of the southwest coastline in 1622. ‘t Landt van P. Nuyts is opgedaen met 't Gulden Zeepaert van Middelburgh 26 Jan 1627 is named for Pieter Nuyts, a Dutch navigator who commanded the Gulden Zeepaert along the southern coast in 1627.
Arnold Colom
Colom's Zee Atlas is among the rarest of all folio sized Sea Atlases published in the 17th Century. Ashley Baynton Williams records 6 surviving complete examples of the atlas in his on-line essay on Colom, 5 of which are in private hands. Referring to the Zee Atlas, Koeman wrote:
This chartbook by Arnold Colom ... is one of the most important atlases in the well known category of Dutch sea-atlases. It is not the first of the group: Joannes Janssonius' Atlas Maritimus (1650), which constitutes volume 5 of the Novus Atlas opens the series ... Contrary to the rather unhomogenous set of charts by Janssonius, Arnold Colom assembled a coherent group of 15 charts, later increased to 17 plus a world map. ... Arnold Colom's three charts of the oceans are on the same scale (1:14mill.) as Portuguese and Spanish charts of that time. It marked the first time that such charts were published as atlas sheets ... (Atlantes Neerlandici, IV, p.115).
The Zee-Atlas is one of the largest format sea-atlases published in Amsterdam of the period, and also one of the scarcest. That Colom's sea atlas and his other cartographic ventures were not successful would seem to be confirmed also by the fact that Colom fell heavily in arrears with his rent. In a notarial act of 1663, Colom gave his landlord, another prominent cartographic publisher Nicolaas Visscher (II), security for the debt, which included the eighteen printing plates for the Zee-Atlas. It would appear that Colom died, in 1668, without redeeming the plates, for no later editions by him are known. Visscher apparently sold the plates to Hendrick Doncker, Sr., who re-issued the plates under his own imprint in 1675. Doncker's re-issued plates are also quite rare, as Doncker soon moved on to use a smaller format set of maps for his more commercially successful atlases of the 1680s.
Rarity
The map is rare on the market.
This is the second example we have offered in over 30 years (1992-2025).