Museums - Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde

The National Museum of Leiden is one of the oldest ethnographic museums in the world, and its history is closely linked with that of the kingdom of Holland. It opened in 1837 as a showcase for King William’s (1772–1843) collection of Chinese “curiosities,” collected at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The German Philipp Franz von Siebold created the museum, which he saw as an opportunity to make known and to explain the customs and ways of these “strange” peoples.
The collection grew in the nineteenth century, first with the addition of Indonesian pieces and then with the acquisition of African pieces, most notably of a vast collection of bronzes and ivories from the Kingdom of Benin. The museum also holds Amerindian archaeological material. Since the Second World War, the museum has acquired a considerable number of pieces from Oceania and from Greenland. Since the 1950s, the museum’s policy has been to be more involved in presenting the changes and dynamics occurring in these cultures, which had hitherto been presented as being static.
The rich collections of the ethnographic museum, which include some 200,000 objects, have been on view in completely renovated quarters since 2001, which satisfy contemporary museum presentation, didactic, and aesthetic requirements. The exhibition is alive and interactive, and offers an environment that highlights the pieces shown, thanks to multimedia support and sensitive lighting. Because of ongoing collecting efforts, the most recent of which was an expedition to the Kamoro of Irian Jaya, the museum’s holdings continue to grow.
The African archaeology section, an incredible wall of Congolese Nkisi Nkonde fetishes, and an important group of Indonesian pieces are especially worthy of note. Interested visitors can also explore the collections through the museum’s Internet site and peruse virtual exhibitions, such as the one on the Indonesian island of Enggano.