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C. Decker and J. Kip. Bad encounter: The Dutch of the VOC, while drinking from a well, are attacked by mad women in Gentynen, Coromandel, 1661 Printed in 'Wouter Schouten’s travels into the East Indies’, 2nd ed. Netherlands (1708) [Source]
The Coromandel Coast is in southern India. Where Gentynen is I have no idea.
Willem Schellinks
Parade of the Sons of Shah Jahan on Composite Horses and Elephants Netherlands (late 1600s) [Source]
Shah Jahan and His Four Sons Netherlands (late 1600s) [Source]
These paintings are pretty weird. They’re by an artist of the Dutch Golden Age who never left Europe, so they’re based on miniatures. And then there’s all these paintings within paintings and curtains and tapestries… and then the animals they’re riding on are jigsaws of other animals.
The V&A says:
The subject is equally mysterious. Although previously identified as the sons of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in procession, this is not certain. That they are Mughal princes or rulers is clear from their costume and emblems of royalty, but their precise identification remains to be confirmed. One is carried on a palanquin composed of female figures; the other three ride animals that are also composed of entwined human figures, though the legs of the composite camel at right are composites of animals. Above the potentate whose royalty is indicated by the shade held by a servant behind him, two figures hover in clouds: they may be identified as Shah Jahan’s father, Jahangir, on the left, and his grandfather Akbar on the right. It is possible that the figure in white holding a hawk is intended to be Shah Jahan. No plausible identification has been made for the orange-robed figure holding a large shield and carried on a camel inside a howdah.
Jan Brandes Tea Business in a European House in Batavia Indonesia (c. 1780) [Source]
Jan Brandes (1743-1808) was a Dutch Lutheran minister who did watercolours of his domestic life in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and South Africa.
I’m kind of intrigued by the apparent lack of a social divide between white and Javanese people in his household. Servants notwithstanding, of course.