The first half of the nineteenth century saw a considerable increase in the number of governmental lodgings. During Herman Willem Daendels’s tenure, inns and smaller guesthouses, called pasanggrahans, sprang up along the Great Post Road, which spanned the entire length of Java. These government-run lodgings were primarily meant for itinerant civil servants and officers, but could, with the government’s permission, be used by private individuals as well. Pleasure travellers especially stayed here at a time when European hotels were scarce, but the guesthouses have remained in use ever since. This water colour of a Javanese pasanggrahan was made around 1860 by the Amsterdam-born engineer Charles Théodore Deeleman. Deeleman is also the inventor of the ‘delman’: the one-horse, two-wheeled carriage that was highly popular in the Dutch East Indies.
A passanggrahan in Java. Watercolour. 16 x 27,5 cm. Charles Théodore Deeleman, around 1860. [KITLV 37A266]