Anonymous: The Darbar of Cornelis van den Bogaerde (1687)

(The David Collection,  Copenhagen, Denmark)

From 1605 to about 1825, the Dutch had settlements and trading posts in India (also referred as 'Dutch India'). All along the west and east coast of India there were Dutch trading posts, Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) was entirely in Dutch hands from 1656 to 1796. The miniature shows the court (darbar) of Cornelis van den Bogaerde, head of Dutch trading post in Hyderabad in the Golconda Sultanate. Golconda was an important staple market for the Dutch V.O.C. (East India Company) an items like leather, iron, diamonds, cotton blankets were bought here by the Dutch. Cornelis van den Bogaerde, in French style clothing, is holding a meeting here with some local Hindu merchants. Behind Cornelis  stands a Indonesian servant, also in Western clothing, who holds a fan of peacock feathers and a branch from a fruit tree (an allusion to the origins of the surname of Cornelis van den Bogaerde (Dutch for an orchard). Because of civil unrest in Golconda and resulting the fall of the Golconda Sultanate, trading here began to diminish from 1693 onward. In 1733 the trading post was abandoned. Painting from 1687.