This hand-coloured engraving of the Dutch colonial capital of Batavia (present-day Jakarta) was created by Jan Van Ryne in 1754. Van Ryne was born in the Netherlands, but spent most of his working life in London, where he specialized in producing engravings of scenes from the British and Dutch colonies. Located at the mouth of the Ciliwung River, Jakarta was the site of a settlement and port possibly going back as far as the fifth century CE. In 1619, the Dutch captured and razed the existing city of Jayakerta (meaning 'glorious fortress' in Sundanese) and built the walled township of Batavia, which became the capital of the Dutch East Indies.