Former name |
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Established | 1864 |
Location | Linnaeusstraat 2, Amsterdam, Netherlands |
Coordinates | 52°21′46″N4°55′21″E / 52.362692°N 4.922517°E |
Type | Anthropological museum |
Collection size | 340,000 objects and photographs |
Visitors | 197,000 visitors (2010) |
Founder | Frederick van Eeden |
Director | Wayne Modest & Marieke van Bommel |
Public transit access | Alexanderplein GVB tram lines 9, 10, 14 |
Website | amsterdam.wereldmuseum.nl |
The Wereldmuseum Amsterdam (known as Tropenmuseum (English: Museum of the Tropics) between 1950 and 2023) is an ethnographic museum located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, founded in 1864. [1]
The Wereldmuseum is one of the largest museums in Amsterdam; it accommodates permanent exhibitions and an ongoing series of temporary exhibitions, including contemporary, modern and traditional visual arts and photographic works. The museum is part of the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (Museum of World Cultures), a combination of three ethnographic museums in the Netherlands. [2]
Frederick van Eeden, father of the writer Frederik van Eeden, and secretary of the Maatschappij ter bevordering van Nijverheid (English: Society for the Promotion of Industry) established the Koloniaal Museum (English: Colonial Museum) in Haarlem in 1864, [1] and opened the museum to the public in 1871. [3] The museum was founded in order to show Dutch overseas possessions, and the inhabitants of these foreign countries, such as Indonesia. In 1871 the institute began research to increase profits made off the colonies. This included attempting to develop improved means of producing coffee beans, rotan and paraffin. The museum came under the influence of ethnologists, who added information on the economy, manners, and customs of the inhabitants. In 1926, they inaugurated the current building in East Amsterdam. At the time, they had 30,000 objects, and a sizable collection of photographs. [3]
Following the independence of Indonesia in 1945, the scope of the museum changed from just the colonial possessions of the Netherlands, to that of many undeveloped colonial states in South America, Africa, and Asia. In the 1960s and 1970s the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs encouraged the museum to expand its scope to more social issues such as poverty and hunger. In the early 1970s a new wing for children was added. This wing is now called Tropenmuseum Junior. [3]
Until March 2014 the museum was owned and operated by the Royal Tropical Institute, a foundation that sponsored the study of tropical cultures around the world. The museum had 176,000 visitors in 2009. [4]
The original building, officially opened in 1926, was designed by Johannes Jacobus van Nieukerken and Marie Adrianus van Nieukerken. It was richly decorated for the time, and took 11 years to build due to World War I and various labor strikes. [5] All of the artwork in the building was created in the first half of the 20th century. In 2003, the museum was listed as a historical building in Amsterdam. [3]
Until the merger in 2014, the museum collection contained 175,000 objects, 155,000 photographs and 10,000 miscellaneous drawings, paintings, and documents. [6] It inherited 15,000 of these from the Ethnographisch Museum Artis. These objects are split up into many collections. The museum houses collections for many geographical areas such as Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. They also have several collections in storage that fall outside of their scope. These include collections for China, Japan, Korea, and Europe.
The photography collection consists mainly of historical photographs of the former Dutch Colonies from 1855 to 1940. In the period 2009-2015 the Tropemmuseum released 50,000 photographs under a Creative Commons licence to the Wikimedia Commons. [7] [8]
A theatric collection is housed at the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam as well. The collection houses 5,500 musical instruments as well as various other theatrical objects such as masks and puppets. It also features 21,000 textile artifacts, a majority of which are from Indonesia. Tropenmuseum Junior is a sub-museum. It features interactive exhibits, and draws 30,000 children a year. [3]
The Wereldmuseum Rotterdam is an ethnographic museum, situated at Willemskade in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The National Museum of Ethnology, is an ethnographic museum in the Netherlands located in the university city of Leiden. As of 2014, the museum, along with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Africa Museum in Berg en Dal, together make up the National Museum of World Cultures.
The National Museum of Indonesia is an archeological, historical, ethnological, and geographical museum located in Jalan Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta, right on the west side of Merdeka Square. Popularly known as the Elephant Museum after the elephant statue in its forecourt, its broad collections cover all of Indonesia's territory and almost all of its history. The museum has endeavoured to preserve Indonesia's heritage for two centuries.
Hendrikus Albertus Lorentz was a Dutch explorer in New Guinea and diplomat in South Africa.
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies, was a Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which declared independence on 17 August 1945. Following the Indonesian War of Independence, Indonesia and the Netherlands made peace in 1949. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, the Dutch ceded the governorate of Dutch Malacca to Britain, leading to its eventual incorporation into Malacca (state) of modern Malaysia.
Indonesia and the Netherlands share a special relationship, embedded in their shared history of colonial interactions for centuries. It began during the spice trade as the Netherlands established the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) trading post in what is now Indonesia, before colonising it as the Dutch East Indies until the mid-20th century. Indonesia was the largest former Dutch colony. In the early 21st century, the Dutch government has committed to boosting its relationship with Indonesia, noting that economic, political, and interpersonal contacts should be further strengthened.
The Kris of Knaud, also known as the Keris of Knaud or Knaud's Kris, is the oldest known kris surviving in the world. Given to Charles Knaud, a Dutch physician, by Paku Alam V in the 19th century, the kris is on display at the Tropenmuseum, Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.
The International Colonial and Export Exhibition was a colonial exhibition held in Amsterdam from May 1 to October 1, 1883. The event drew at least a million visitors and was the first international colonial exhibition, with 28 different nations presenting their colonial trade and wealth.
The Royal Tropical Institute is an applied knowledge institute located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is an independent centre of expertise, education, intercultural cooperation and hospitality dedicated to sustainable development.
Ethnographic Museum Artis was an ethnographic museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was situated at the Artis zoo.
Aceh State Museum, popularly known as Aceh Museum or Banda Aceh Museum is a museum in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. It is one of the oldest museum in Indonesia.
Pieter Adriaan Jacobus "Piet" Moojen was a Netherlands-Indies architect, painter and writer. He studied architecture and painting in Antwerp. He lived and worked in the Dutch East Indies from 1903 to 1929. He was one of the first architects to implement Modernism in the Dutch East Indies. Moojen became widely known for his work on the Dutch entry at the Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931. He was active as an architect between 1909 and 1931.
Jacobus Anthonie Meessen was a Dutch photographer who took more than 250 portraits and landscapes of the Dutch East Indies between 1864 and 1870. Born to a carpenter in Utrecht, Meessen worked in that trade in the Indies before marrying in the Netherlands in the early 1860s. He returned to the colony in 1864, intent on documenting its land and people. He worked mostly in the capital of Batavia, Java, and Padang, Sumatra; he also photographed Bangka, Belitung, Borneo, and Nias.
Josephine Powell was an American photographer, traveller, and a collector of Anatolian ethnographic objects and textiles.
The Africa Museum is a museum in Berg en Dal in the Netherlands. The museum on the outskirts of the city of Nijmegen is a complex with indoor as well as open-air display areas, covering art, culture, music, photographs, videos and architecture of Africa. As of 2014, the museum, along with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, and National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, together make up the National Museum of World Cultures.
Thilly Weissenborn was the first professional woman photographer of the former Dutch East Indies and one of the few photographers working in the early 20th century in the area who were Indonesian born. Her works were widely used to expand the newly developed tourism industry of the East Indies.
The Great Pustaha is a pustaha displayed in the Tropenmuseum of Amsterdam. The name refers to the largest pustaha which was kept in the museum. The official name for the pustaha is simply "pustaha", but for the purpose of distinction, the pustaha is called the Great Pustaha.
The Dutch: Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (NMVW) is an overarching museum organisation for the management of several ethnographic museums in the Netherlands, founded in 2014. It consists of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal, and the Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden. The National Museum of World Cultures works in close cooperation with the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam. It is also part of nation-wide Dutch organisations for research into provenance studies and projects of restitution of cultural heritage to countries of origin, like the former Dutch colony in today's Indonesia.
Frederik Willem van Eeden was a Dutch amateur botanist. He was the father of the writer Frederik van Eeden.
Johan Theodorus (Jan) Broekhuijse was a Dutch anthropologist, ethnographer, civil servant and photographer.