Hollands bruidsfeest te Batavia 1779 - 1785

Jan Brandes made this watercolor drawing of a Dutch wedding in Batavia – now Jakarta, Indonesia – at some point in the late 18th century. Brandes, who worked for the Dutch East India Company, has rendered the scene with delicate washes of pigment on paper. Yet the apparent lightness of this work belies a heavy social reality. The Dutch presence in Indonesia was all about resource extraction. While this particular wedding might appear to be a scene of delicate finery, you can see how the servants attending to the wedding party are a mix of Indonesian and European descent, revealing the colonial structure in place. The chandeliers, mirrors, and ornate throne all speak to the wealth generated by the Company, even as the artist's muted palette hints at the underlying tensions of the colonial context. Brandes was a clergyman, not a trained artist. His approach has the value of a first-hand account, reflecting how even a wedding celebration could not escape the realities of labor and class.