Luxagraf

BibliOdyssey has dug up another stellar set of illustrations. And there’s going to be BibliOdyssey book, so the nerdery can live on the coffee table, not just the computer screen. Anyway these great natural history illustrations are from the Swedish East India Company (I guess everybody had an East India Company, who knew?)

The Swedish East India Company was formed under Royal Charter in 1731 and granted exclusive national trading rights with Asia, mostly through the port of Canton ( near Hong Kong). Round-trip voyages from the company’s headquarters in Goteborg took around eighteen months and the major commodities transported back were tea, silk, porcelain and spices.

In all, there were 127 voyages undertaken prior to the company’s becoming insolvent in 1813 due to reduced profits during the Napoleonic years. Eight major sailing vessels were either lost or partially destroyed while the company was operating, including the ‘Gotheborg’, which famously sank on return to the harbour in Goteborg in 1745. In the 1990s, marine archaeologists were able to salvage some of the original ship, and after a ten year rebuilding project, a to-scale replica undertook a nineteen month voyage from Sweden to China and back, returning to Goteborg in June 2007.

The images on the site come from the diary of a cartographer named Carl Johan Gethe.

Visit Site: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/11/dagbok-east-india-trading-company....