Artwork
View of Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India
View of Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India is an oil painting by Johannes Vingboons. It dates from 1662 and is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The work serves as a visual record of the coastal environment and maritime activity associated with this region of India during the mid-seventeenth century.
The painting depicts a landscape view of Cochin, situated on the Malabar Coast of India. As a work classified within the landscape genre, the composition features a boat as a central element of the scene. Created in 1662 by Johannes Vingboons, the image represents a specific geographic location rather than an allegorical or symbolic construct.
The work serves as a visual record of the coastal environment and maritime activity associated with this region of India during the mid-seventeenth century.
Technique & Style
View of Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India is an oil painting executed on canvas by Johannes Vingboons in 1662. Classified as a landscape genre, the work depicts a coastal scene featuring boats along the Malabar Coast of India. The painting measures 97 cm in height and 140 cm in width.
Created in the Northern Low Countries, the piece utilizes oil paint to render its formal composition, characteristic of 17th-century landscape painting.
History & Provenance
The landscape painting View of Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India was created in 1662 by Johannes Vingboons in the Northern Low Countries, executed in oil on canvas. It entered the collection of the Rijksmuseum, where it remains on display in Amsterdam.
The work was commissioned by the Dutch East India Company and depicts a coastal scene that reflects the commercial interests of the Netherlands in South India during the mid‑17th century. Its dimensions are 97 cm in height and 140 cm in width.
View of Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India is an oil painting on canvas dated 1662. It is housed in the Rijksmuseum, where it holds the inventory number SK-A-1555. The work has been featured in exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum focusing on Dutch Golden Age landscapes.
Context
The painting View of Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India (1662) by Johannes Vingboons is recognized as a landscape work depicting a coastal scene in India. It is housed in the Rijksmuseum collection in Amsterdam and is classified as an oil painting on canvas. The artwork reflects Dutch colonial-era artistic engagement with Asian geographies, particularly through the lens of maritime trade and European visual documentation of the Malabar Coast.
Its composition and genre align with 17th-century European landscape traditions while incorporating subject matter drawn from Dutch colonial territories in South Asia.
Scholarly attention to the piece has focused on its role within Vingboons' broader oeuvre of coastal vistas and its significance in early European representations of Indian landscapes. Art historical analysis situates it within the context of Dutch mercantile expansion and the production of topographical imagery by artists employed by the Dutch East India Company.
The work's provenance and physical attributes, including its dimensions of 97 cm in height and 140 cm in width, are documented in institutional records and catalogues raisonnés. It remains part of the Rijksmuseum's permanent collection, where it is studied as an example of early European artistic engagement with colonial spaces.
The painting is not attributed to a named pupil or listed as a direct influence on later artists in standard art historical databases, and no market value or exhibition history beyond institutional documentation is cited in available sources.
Overview
Johannes Vingboons painted this oil landscape in 1662, offering a panoramic view of Cochin on India’s Malabar Coast. The composition centers on a coastal settlement with a prominent church, framed by gentle hills, a distant mountain range, and a broad expanse of sea under a cloudy sky. The work is part of the Rijksmuseum’s collection.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Johannes Vingboons was a Dutch draughtsman, watercolourist, and cartographer active in Amsterdam during the seventeenth century, in the period of the Dutch Golden Age.
