Colonial Collections Consortium
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Trade

##description Trade in colonial objects and goods was at the heart of the formation of collections in the Netherlands. Trade and sales played a central role in the circulation of these objects in Europe. By the early 20th century, the colonial art trade had developed into a thriving business in the Netherlands. Dutch museums regularly bought from dealers and auction houses, not only in the Netherlands, but also in other European colonizing countries, especially Germany, Belgium, France and Great Britain. These same dealers and auction houses were sources for private collections, from which objects sometimes later made their way into museum collections.

Well known dealers who sold colonial goods to museums and individuals were the firms Van Lier (1927-1996), Aalderink (1930-2023) and Lemaire (1933-present) and the Amsterdam auction houses Frederik Muller & Co. (1876-1961) and Mak van Waay (1918-1974). In The Hague, the stores the Groote Koninklijke Bazar (1841-1927) and Boeatan (1903-1949) specialized in Asian decorative arts.

For the purpose of trading in colonial products and raw materials, such as rubber, ivory, cotton and tobacco, wholesale firms were established. The employees of these trading houses collected objects in the wake of their work. An example is the Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handels-Vennootschap N.V. (NAHV, 1880-1982) that traded in Central Africa. A large number of African objects, especially from Congo, have been donated to Dutch museums by individuals associated with this company.

Little research has been done into the Dutch colonial art trade. However, more is known about the influence of trade on art production in the colonized territories. Throughout the colonial period, artists from countries of origin responded to the demand for objects from Europe. These artists began working both for their own market and for the purpose of selling to foreigners. Transactions of this type of objects, formerly known as tourist art, are also part of colonial collecting practices.

Trade in colonial objects continues to this day. Therefore, provenance research can sometimes include dealers who began operations after the colonial period or auctions that took place recently.

##Provenance research Compared to the trade in Western art, the archives of dealers in ethnographics and non-Western objects are less often preserved in archival institutions. When dealers traded in both genres of art, sometimes only archives relating to Western art appear to have been preserved. When company archives do survive, they are usually in the archives of the municipality where the company was located. The RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History) and the National Archives also keep some archives of dealers in colonial art.

Due to privacy laws, auction houses do not reveal the names of contributors for auctions that took place less than 50 years ago. Still, it pays to inquire, if only to get a rough description of the contributor. International auction houses, such as Christie's and Sotheby's, have specialized staff who provide information on provenance research. An important source are catalogs of auctions in non-western objects. The two largest libraries in this field, those of the RKD and Rijksmuseum, also have annotated catalogs, sometimes with notes on the objects, buyers and sellers.

The libraries of the RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History) and the Rijksmuseum have extensive collections of catalogs of auctions held in the Netherlands, including auctions of non-Western objects. The RKD's digitized auction catalogs are available through the Art Sales Catalogues Online database. This database can be consulted for free on location at the Rijksmuseum Research Library and the RKD.

For both the RKD and the Rijksmuseum Research Library, many of the catalogs are not yet digitally accessible and cannot yet be found in the library catalogs. However, it is possible to contact both libraries, stating the date and name of the auction house, and the staff will see if the relevant catalog is available.

The French portal AGORHA also contains information on individuals and institutions involved in the trade of art and archaeological objects.

Resources

Related items

Wereldmuseum Leiden
Select and delineate
Kunsthandel Van Lier
Military and navy
Sources
Groote Koninklijke Bazar

Keywords

Art trade
Auction houses
Decorative arts
Etnografic objects