A rare Dutch East India Company ‘VOC’ cannon

Amsterdam, signed by Pieter Seest, dated 1764 and with Amsterdam town mark

The bronze 1/2-pounder was made for 17-caliber length, and has a later wood gun carriage. The cannon bears a large VOC monogram and the A for the East India Company Chamber of Amsterdam.

L. 80 cm, grams

Provenance:
Collection H.L.Visser, the Netherlands

Literature:
R. Roth, The Visser Collection - Arms of the Netherlands, in the collection of H.L. Visser, vol II, Zwolle, 1996, cat. no. C37, pp. 138-139 (ill.)

Before the start of the Eighty Years War in 1568, ordinance manufacture was in the Southern Netherlands, particularly in Mechelen, and the Northern Provinces only had a tradition of church bell casting, not of gun founding. However, thanks to migration out of the Southern Netherlands due to Spanish religious intolerance, a large section of the population that had embraced the Protestant faith, including many wealthy entrepreneurs and skilled craftsmen, fled to the North. Cut off from the traditional supply of ordinance, the North, with the help of immigrants from the South, developed their own ordinance.

Already by the early 17th century, Dutch arms and ammunition were major export products to the rest of Europe and abroad. This was fuelled by the expansion of maritime trade through the East and West India Companies, who needed to arm their vast shipping fleets. A religious refugee from the bishopric of Liège, Louis de Geer, together with Walloon iron workers, initiated copper and iron mining and established the Finspång gun foundry in Sweden. Together with Elias Trip, his brother-in-law, a prominent Dutch merchant of guns and financier of the foundry in Sweden, he made Holland the military arsenal of the world, exporting military equipment to most countries in Europe and further afield.

Most guns were made of iron because they were cheaper. However, since iron affects the compasses aboard ships, bronze guns were placed near the helm.