1640–?
Jan and Nicholas Verkolje
Untitled c.1690–1700
oil on canvas; 26.5 x 32.0 cm
Purchased with the assistance of the Bruce and Joy Reid Foundation, Mercantile Mutual, Philips Electronics Australia, Dr Harold Schenberg.
Australian National Maritime Museum
This portrait of a gentleman in a cassock, with a maritime scene on one side and a chart, crosstaff, astrolabe, chart dividers and celestial globe on the other, suggests a Dutch seafarer from the VOC (Dutch East India Company) of the 1690s, and is believed to be Willem de Vlamingh.
In 1696, Willem de Vlamingh commanded a rescue mission to Australia's west coast to find the survivors of a VOC (Dutch East India Company) ship that had gone missing two years earlier. The mission proved fruitless, but along the way de Vlamingh charted parts of the continent's western coast and named Rottnest Island and the Swan River.
Vlamingh joined the VOC in 1688 and made his first voyage to Batavia in the same year. Following a second voyage, in 1694, he was asked to mount an expedition to search for the Ridderschap van Holland, a capital ship that was lost with 325 passengers and crew on its way to Batavia in 1694. VOC officials believed it might have run aground on the west coast of the South Land.
On 3 May 1696, three ships under the command of de Vlamingh—the Geelvinck, Nijptang and Wezeltje—set sail from Amsterdam. After nearly eight months at sea, the crew sighted an island off the coast of Australia.
The island, uninhabited by humans but overrun by what the Dutch thought were rats (actually small wallabies called quokkas), was named Rottenest (Dutch for rat's nest), now Rottnest Island. On 10 January 1697, de Vlamingh explored the Zwaanenrivier (Swan River) by boat, managing to reach almost 20 kilometres upstream.
The ships continued their northward journey. On 30 January, de Vlamingh sighted Dirk Hartog's island, where he retrieved the inscribed pewter plate left by Hartog in 1616 and replaced it with one of his own.
On 11 February 1697, the fleet left the island and set sail for Batavia, after having charted the west coast of Australia from latitudes 20°S to 32°S. The land, however, was deemed to be unprofitable.
