Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Today's Rijksmuseum Amsterdam was founded in 1885. It is an amalgamation of several 19th century Dutch collections. The collection includes objects coming from the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities. Additionally, the collection of the Royal Asian Art Society in the Netherlands is exhibited in the Rijksmuseum.

Description

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in its current form dates from 1885, when the collections of several Dutch museums were merged. Direct predecessors of the Rijksmuseum are the Nationale Konst-Gallery, 's Rijks Verzameling van Moderne Kunst in Haarlem, Nederlandsch Museum van Geschiedenis en Kunst and the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities, both in The Hague. Since 1952, the collection of the Royal Society of Friends of Asian Art (KVVAK) has also been exhibited at the Rijksmuseum. In the context of researching collections from a colonial context, the collections of the KVVAK and the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities within the Rijksmuseum collection are of particular interest.

Provenance research

The archives of the Rijksmuseum and its predecessors up to 1995 are available via the Noord-Hollands Archief and are accompanied by an extensive archival description. The more recent archives are available through the Rijksmuseum itself. For information on these archival materials and consultation options, please contact archief@rijksmuseum.nl.

The Rijksmuseum collection is accessible and searchable via the collection website. The ‘search options’ button offers more selection options for finding objects. Relevant information on the provenance of objects can often be found on the object pages, which also display relevant publications. The website also has theme pages on the history of slavery and the colonial past. These pages contain more information about the relationship between the Rijksmuseum collection and these themes.

The Rijksmuseum Research Library contains a large quantity of books, journals, auction, exhibition, trade and collection catalogues. These publications can be viewed in the Rijksmuseum library. The Rijksmuseum also owns around 130,000 auction catalogues, dating from the seventeenth century to the present. Just under half of the catalogues can be found within the digital library catalogue of the Rijksmuseum Research Library. Catalogues acquired before 1989 can only be found in the paper catalogue. You can enquire at the Rijksmuseum Library if the catalogue you are looking for is available. Also accessible in the library collection is the Art Sales Catalogues Online (ASCO). This database contains over 20,000 historical auction catalogues from the period 1600-1900. The so-called Special-Collections segment within the collection of the National Museum Library includes old prints, books with original prints or photographs, special bibliophile editions, artists' books, recipe books and all the works of the Royal Archaeological Society (KOG).

Resources

• Rijksmuseum en rechtsvoorgangers te Amsterdam
  Archives of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and its legal predecessors. The archive goes back to the beginning of the nineteenth century and contains documentation up to and including 1995, the year that the museum became an independent organisation. The archive of the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities, among others, is also located within this archive. — https://hdl.handle.net/21.12102/01644F687DD84B309BF24360FD2B2A25
• Mooren, Jona, Klaas Stutje, en Frank van Vree. Sporen: onderzoek naar herkomstgeschiedenis en betekenisgeving van culturele projecten en collecties verworven in koloniale situaties (Amsterdam: NIOD, 2022).
  A number of objects from the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum have been investigated as part of the Pilot Project Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era (PPROCE). The extensive provenance reports are online and contain many useful insights. — https://d3mb4k8bvt6xe4.cloudfront.net/2023-03/ME_Lijst%20herkomstverslagenwebsite_01.pdf