Pamono Colored Antique Print of the Islands of Marken, New Ireland and Other Islands, 1726> Posters

Antique print titled ‘De Kust van Nova Guinea tot aan deze bogt (..)’. Four engravings on one sheet showing panoramic views of the islands of Marken, the Groene islands, Sint Jans island and New Ireland, on the same latitude as Cabo de Santa Maria. Abel Tasman, but also Willem Schouten and Isaac le Maire thought that these archipelagos were situated off the coast of New Guinea. But they were actually situated close to the island now known as New Ireland. Ontong Java is still known as such, the Groene eilanden are today known as the Green Islands, and Marken is now known as Takuu. This print originates from ‘Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën’ by F. Valentijn. François Valentyn or Valentijn (17 April 1666 – 6 August 1727) was a Dutch Calvinist minister, naturalist and author whose Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën (“Old and New East-India”) describes the history of the Dutch East India Company while also making notes on geography, ethnography, and natural history; half is about the Moluccas. In total, Valentyn lived in the East Indies 16 years. Valentyn was first employed by the V.O.C. (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) at the age of 19 as minister to the East Indies, where he became a friend of the German naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf (Rumphius). He returned and lived in Holland for about ten years before returning to the Indies in 1705 where he was to serve as army chaplain on an expedition in eastern Java. He finally returned to Dordrecht where he found time to write his Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën (1724–26) a massive work of five parts published in eight volumes and containing 1,200 engraved illustrations and some of the most accurate maps of the Indies of the time.