Royal Cabinet of Curiosities

The Royal Cabinet of Curiosities (Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden, KKZ) was founded in 1816 by King Willem I. The collection contained various objects from among others the Dutch colonies. In 1883, the KKZ was closed down, after which it's collection was divided amongst Dutch museums, such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and today's Wereldmuseum Leiden.

Description

The Royal Cabinet of Curiosities was a museum in The Hague, founded in 1816 by King Willem I. The museum took the form of a cabinet of curiosities and its collection comprised a wide array of objects, including many from Dutch and other powers’ colonies. Ultimately, it housed all sorts: objects related to Dutch history, Asian applied arts, ethnographic objects, and naturalia.

The basis of the collection was formed by Chinese and Japanese objects collected by Jean Theodore Royer, a preacher and lawyer with a fascination for Chinese language and literature who amassed a large collection of prints, paintings and documents, Jan Cock Blomhoff, among other things a warehouse manager at the Dutch trading post on the Japanese peninsula Dejima, and Johan van Overmeer Fisscher, who also worked on Dejima. King Willem I subsequently contributed the stadtholders’ collections. In the course of its existence the museum also received various donations and made acquisitions. Eventually the collection comprised significant collections of Japanese and Chinese objects and numerous items – many of which were diplomatic gifts from the stadholders’ collections – from Southeast Asia and the West African Gold Coast as well as from North America and Oceania. The museum was dissolved in 1883 and its collection distributed among several museums. The majority went to the Rijks Etnografisch Museum (now Wereldmuseum Leiden and the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst (subsumed into the Rijksmuseum). Small numbers of objects were transferred to the National Museum of Antiquities, the Koninklijk Kabinet van Munten, Penningen en Gesneden Stenen, the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, the Rijksmuseum van Geologie en Mineralogie and the Rijksherbarium.

Provenance research

The original records of the collection, created by the first director Reinier van de Kasteele, disappeared after his son Abraham van de Kasteele succeeded him in 1840. Many objects also went missing or were lost during this time. The third and final director David van der Kellen, who took office in 1876, had to put things in order. As can be read in Rudolf Effert's book (Volkenkundig Verzamelen, pp. 213-216), in 1876-1879 Van der Kellen drew up a new inventory of objects, in which he attempted to link remaining documentation to objects in the extensive collection. Mistakes were made in this process.

The archive of the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities is held in the Noord-Hollands Archief as part of the Rijksmuseum archive. It includes correspondence regarding donations and acquisitions. The appendices include additional access with convenient overviews of this correspondence. Please note that the KKZ’s correspondence also relates to items that were offered to the collection but were ultimately not acquired.

In addition, archival documents are held at the National Archives of the Netherlands, written by officials of the Ministry of the Interior. These relate to acquisitions, as well as the dissolution of the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities and the distribution of the collection among the various museums. The letter archive of the Ministry of the Interior contains notes verbales and letters regarding submitted donations and sales. These can be traced using the indices in the notes verbales.

Resources

• NL-HaNA 2.04.13 2.2.4.1.2.06
  Archive access within the archives of the Ministry of the Interior containing documents from the years 1875-1887 relating to the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities. — https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/2.04.13/invnr/%402.~2.2~2.2.4~2.2.4.1~2.2.4.1.2~2.2.4.1.2.06
• — http://archive.org/details/kortehandleiding00kast
• — https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=-p1RAAAAcAAJ
• NL-HaNA 2.04.01 4030
  Outgoing letters from the king's secretary, concerning donations and other matters. From the period 1815-1818, accessible online. — https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/2.04.01/invnr/4030/file/NL-HaNA_2.04.01_4030_0001
• — https://search.worldcat.org/title/163275947?oclcNum=163275947
• — https://search.worldcat.org/title/1463743743?oclcNum=1463743743
• NL-HlmNHA 476 5
  The inventory access of the archive of the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities within the archive of the Rijksmuseum and its legal predecessors. — https://hdl.handle.net/21.12102/2422AD00C789442FAE99779C81E66552
• NL-HlmNHA 476 1076
  Documents concerning the handling of the distribution of objects from the former Royal Cabinet of Curiosities between the Rijks Ethnografisch Museum in Leiden and the Nederlandsch Museum van Geschiedenis en Kunst, 1885-1888. — https://hdl.handle.net/21.12102/2472CF6620004E9E878802D9406CE688
• — https://d3mb4k8bvt6xe4.cloudfront.net/2023-03/ME_Lijst%20herkomstverslagenwebsite_01.pdf
• NL-HlmNHA 476 11.1
  Access from the archives of the Rijksmuseum containing a wide range of documents relating to the acquisition, loan and restoration of objects. — https://hdl.handle.net/21.12102/87E110A9A147458AB8E59021D9186701
• — https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003044789
• NL-HlmNHA 476 874-875
  Contains the draft inventories of the collections of Royer, Cock Blomhoff and Van Overmeer Fisscher. Accessible online. — https://hdl.handle.net/21.12102/21D672ACA1794CFC9DAABE5F116BC5BC
• NL-HaNA 2.04.01 4925-4954
  Concerns indices of the department of Arts and Science of the Ministry of the Interior from 1824 to 1848. Correspondence concerning acquisitions can be traced via an index. The indices can be accessed online. — https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/2.04.01/invnr/%40P~4925-4954