matter who was in charge of government as first minister. A good example is provided by the
state s art collections, distributed across three venues: paintings and other works of art were
on display in Amsterdam at the Trippenhuis, in Haarlem at Paviljoen Welgelegen, and in The
Hague at the Royal Cabinet of Paintings (Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijeri). The core of
the collections in Amsterdam and The Hague was formed by former Royal collections, and
many of the paintings on display in The Hague had in fact already been accessible to the
general public at the so-called Prince William Gallery (Galerij van Prins Willem V op de
Buitenhof) even before the French Revolution.140 However, after 1832, up until the 1870s,
practically not a penny was spent on any new acquisitions to expand or update these
collections, let alone any kind of new premises in which they could be displayed.141 There
was, therefore, no leeway for any sort of transformation of these museums into educational
institutions even if that had been deemed desirable. They essentially retained the same guise
which they had been given shortly after their establishment in the aftermath of the Restoration
period.
Again, there were two main reasons for this pertinent lack of funding for state museums: the
first was that there really simply was no money to go around. The Belgian secession of 1830
and King William I’s subsequent denial of that fact that his kingdom had been diminished left
the state coffers bare - all the more so because the King had taken the fateful decision of
focusing on what now became Belgium in his efforts to stimulate the transformation of his
kingdom’s economy from a predominantly agrarian to an industrialised one; put differently,
around the middle of the 19th century the Netherlands were a backwater of industrialisation.142
The second reason was the long tradition of decentralised governance in the Netherlands, as
described in the first chapter of this study. This in turn meant that any form of policy that was
perceived to originate from The Hague was eyed a lot more critically and was therefore also
far more difficult to implement than any similar form of policy might have been in, say,
France if it was authored in Paris. A good case in point are the Dutch King William I’s
attempts at emphasising a sense of national pride by, for example, founding all sorts of
institutions such as national museums. This reflected his desire to build a strong Dutch
monarchy on par with other monarchies in Europe. Yet the end result shows the whole futility
of his activities: he ended up leaving his son, King William II, with a diminished and
financially decrepit kingdom and William II was only narrowly able to avert the state’s
complete insolvency through a number of radical measures implemented in 1843 and 1844.143
And as for the national museums, it has already been recounted how at least two of these, the
National Museum of National History and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, clearly belied
their origins as a private collection and a municipal collection respectively. They were
nowhere near as glamorous as their counterparts in other nations. What’s more, the idea that
140 For an overview o f the history o f these collections, their display and the way they were related to each other
see: Theodor H. Lunsingh Scheurleer et al., 150 ja a r Koninklijk kabinet van schilderijen, Koninklijke
Bibliotheek, Koninklijk Penningkabiet (The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1967); Duparc, Een eeuw strijd voor
Nederlands cultureel erfgoed, 49-70.
1 Duparc, Een eeuw strijd voor Nederlands cultureel erfgoed, 53 & 56.
For a summary o f events during this period o f Dutch history see for instance: Michael North, Geschichte der
Niederlande (München: Beck, 1997), 80-93.
R.A.M. Aerts et al., Land van kleine gebaren: een politieke geschiedenis van Nederland 1780-1990
(Nijmegen: SUN, 2010), 93.
any central government’s role needed to be minimised was seemingly perpetuated in the new
Dutch constitution as it was drawn up in 1848, with its strong liberal overtones. In fact,
without wanting to caricaturise this complex character, radical liberalism was pretty much
epitomised by the principal architect of the new constitution, Rudolf Thorbecke. His own
political views, in turn, were discernible in his attitude towards museums. As a young
professor in Leiden, for instance, he once left no doubt about the fact that he was not an avid
fan of his University’s Archaeological Cabinet — the later National Museum of Antiquities.
He disparagingly referred to the collection as “dolls and sarcophagi”, and stated that he would
see them moved to another town “without shedding a tear”.
2. Some Critics of Official Dutch Museum Policy
Yet the fact that cultural ideals such as those espoused by Prince Albert did not prevail in the
Netherlands and the fact that the state only got involved in cultural matters in any meaningful
way after the 1870s does not mean that the role of museums was not critically debated, or the
government’s liberal stance in cultural matters was never criticised. On the contrary, over the
years there were a number of high-profile attempts at stimulating Dutch culture through
public, state-funded museums liexcept that, ultimately, they were all futile.
Take Caspar Reuvens for instance, the first director of the Cabinet of Antiquities in Leiden.
He had spent part of his youth in Paris.145 (Incidentally, upon returning to the Netherlands in
1814 he spent some time with his uncle Jean Henri van Swinden, along with van Marum one
of the most prominent Dutch physicists of his generation.14 ) The talented and prolific
Reuvens was later appointed the first professor of archaeology at the University of Leiden and
simultaneously entrusted with the care of the newly created Cabinet.1 7 It soon transpired that
he had far-reaching plans for this institution. His aim was to create a collection that would
rival those in other major European cities. As much can be inferred from his correspondence
with officials in The Hague, in which at one point he insisted that “his” Cabinet’s purpose be
clearly defined.1 This in itself is of course a clear indication that the purpose and public role
144 “poppen en Sarkophagen”; “zonder een traan te störten”; as quoted in: Chris Sol, “Mummies op de
Schopstoel,” Leids Jaarboekje 90 (1998): 101. The quote is taken from a report written in 1834. Interestingly,
Sol also points out that Thorbecke later vociferously - and perhaps ambivalently - demanded that someone with
proper scientific credentials should be placed in charge o f the Archaeological Cabinet. I am grateful to Pieter ter
Keurs for drawing my attention to the article by Sol.
145 On Reuvens’ early biography see for instance: Ruurd B. Halbertsma, Scholars, Travellers, and Trade: The
Pioneer Years o f the National Museum o f Antiquities in Leiden, 1818-1840 (London; New York: Routledge,
2003), 21-30; Mirjam Hoijtink, “Caspar J.C. Reuvens en de Musea van Oudheden in Europa (1800-1840)”
(PhD-thesis, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2009), 1-40.
146 Hoijtink, “Caspar J.C. Reuvens en de Musea van Oudheden in Europa (1800-1840),” 8.
147 On this see for example: Mirjam Hoijtink, “Een Rijksmuseum in wording: Het Archaeologisch Cabinet in
Leiden onder het directoraat van Caspar Reuvens (1818-1835),” in Het Museale Vaderland, ed. Ellinoor
Bergvelt and Lieske Tibbe, vol. 4, De Negentiende Eeuw 27 (Rotterdam: Werkgroep 19de eeuw, 2003), 227.
148 Halbertsma, Scholars, Travellers, and Trade: The Pioneer Years o f the National Museum o f Antiquities in
Leiden, 1818-1840, 34-43.