Oil Painting by Aven Chen
In 1623, the Dutch East India Company arrived in Tayouan, nowadays Tainan and built Fort Zeelandia, becoming the first foreign civilization in Taiwan. In order to enlarge the the castle, the company sent a fleet from Indonesia the following year to transport building materials and craftsmen across the Bashi Channel to Tainan. In this oil painting, we can see the blue, white and red tricolor flag of the Dutch East India Company flying at the stern of the flagship. The scene is the sea off Fangshan Township, Pingtung County, and the black part of the distant horizon is a tributary of the Kuroshio Current.
