Museum Bronbeek

Museum Bronbeek was founded in 1863 as part of the Colonial Military Home for Disabled. It is situated close to the city of Arnhem and contains a large collection of militaria, as well as ethnographic and other types of objects.

Description

After King Willem III ceded the Bronbeek estate in Arnhem to the Dutch state in 1862, a home was established there in 1863 for invalided colonial soldiers who had served in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL). Many of these former soldiers owned items that had been taken as booty from the battlefield or brought back as souvenirs after their time in the Dutch East Indies. The Ministry of Colonies, members of the royal family and private individuals also donated various militaria such as weapons, banners, medals and portraits, giving the home a museum function as well.

Until 1959 the home and its museum were placed under the Ministry of Colonies, after which they came under the then new Ministry of Defence, of which it is still part today. During the 1950s the objects in the museum were still displayed in the typical nineteenth-century manner, with the walls full of paintings and a large number of objects displayed on either side of a narrow path. All this changed with a major renovation in 1963, prompted partly by the changing social views on the Dutch colonial past. Several further major changes to the museum's layout were to be made in the remainder of the twentieth century. From 1970 Bronbeek was opened to all former professional soldiers, not just KNIL veterans.

Museum Bronbeek opened a new permanent display of the collection in 2024.

Provenance research

Museum Bronbeek's collection is searchable on the museum's collection website. The library of more than 15,000 books is searchable through Worldcat. Archives related to Bronbeek can be found at the museum itself, at the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague and at the Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH).

In 2024 Museum Bronbeek launched a website with 6,000 biographies of Knights in the Military Order of Willem. Various publications on the Military Willem Order have been collected, supplemented and made available online via this website. It is possible to search by name, year, rank or army unit. Individual pages contain personal information, information on postings and archival references.

Resources

Related items

Keywords

Military museum
Etnographics
Collecting

Geographical

Indonesia

Period of activity

1863 – Present