Missiemuseum Steyl

History of the museum

In 1875, during the so-called Kulturkampf in Germany, the priest Arnold Janssen decided to found the [Society of the Divine Word (Societas Verbi Divini)](http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q696656, SVD) in Steyl, just across the border with the Netherlands. Ever since the mission to China in 1879, missionaries had been collecting objects and sending them back to Steyl. In 1894, the mission house built a new printing workshop, where the collection was also housed. The collection grew steadily with objects from various countries to which the Steyl missionaries travelled, and as well as ethnographic artefacts it comprised taxidermied and preserved animals. Not all of the animals and objects were collected by the missionaries from Steyl, other collections were also incorporated. Due to the growing collection, the museum moved to another new location, where it remains to this day.

The museum as opened in 1931 was arranged completely according to the design of Brother Berchmans, who was also responsible for the museum's large butterfly collection. The presentation of the collection at the Missiemuseum has remained virtually unchanged since Berchmans' death in 1934. Thus, in line with prevailing ideas in 1931, the showcases with ethnographic objects are arranged according to the supposed degree of ‘civilisation’ of different peoples. Given that the arrangement of the museum has remained virtually unchanged since 1934, the Steyl Mission Museum is a ‘museum within a museum’, giving an impression of how ethnographic collections were perceived in the twentieth century. The juxtaposition of objects reflects the worldview of the Catholic mission at that time.

With Brother Berchmans leaving little documentation relating to the museum collection when he died, the precise provenance history of many objects is not known. Much of the natural history collection was bought from zoos and merchants. Ethnographic objects were mainly acquired by SVD missionaries, with little known about the means of acquisition. The natural history collection does not focus only on flora and fauna from abroad but also includes objects from the Netherlands. The Steyl Mission Museum is also the custodian of the Schmutzer collection, a group of wooden sculptures made between 1924 and 1927 by Indonesian artist Iko and commissioned by Joseph Schmutzer.

Picture of the permanent exhibition in the great hall of the Missiemuseum Steyl (Kleon3)

Provenance research

Since Brother Berchmans left little documentation regarding the collection of the Missiemuseum Steyl, the provenance of many objects is limited. There is a marginal record that was kept until 1934 and some documentation from after that period, but it is sparse and unorganised. A book and a few notebooks contain brief descriptions of the objects and details of their arrival, sometimes with a number that can be linked to an object. There is also a museum archive, but it is not accessible. Researchers may use the archive upon request by sending a message to the curator (mailto:conservator@missiemuseumsteyl.nl).

The Missiemuseum's collection is not fully registered although this is being worked on. The idea is that as the museum collection is registered it will become available via the Limburgs Erfgoednet website, where some objects from the museum can already be viewed. Besides the museum collection, the SVD also has a library of natural history and ethnography books from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as a collection of photographs and glass negatives. More information about the Missiemuseum Steyl collection can be found in the Collection Plan 2023-2028 (in Dutch).

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