Museums - Tropenmuseum

The Royal Tropical Institute was founded in the city of Haarlem (near Amsterdam), and the first ethnographic object in its collection was inventoried in 1864. The Musée Colonial, the first of its kind, was founded in 1871 with the goal of showing objects from the Dutch colonies of Indonesia, New Guinea, Surinam, and the Antilles, and to promote an understanding of the wealth of their material culture. In 1926, the museum moved into its current space, an imposing building in a very eclectic style.
Since the independence of Indonesia in 1949, the museum’s acquisitions have broadened in scope to include works from other non-European cultures, and the former Musée Colonial has become the most important anthropological museum in the Netherlands. The objects in the museum were acquired through purchase or gift with some tie to a colonial context, and many officers stationed in the colonies collected for the museum. Moreover, the first director of the museum led a scientific expedition to New Guinea in the course of which he collected some 400 pieces from the north coast. He also confronted missionaries who were burning “idols.” Many interesting personalities participated in the building of the museum’s collection, among them linguist Herman Neubronner, who assembled a group of Batak works while on a mission in Sumatra sponsored by the Dutch Bible Society.
The permanent exhibits occupy three floors and include displays of works from Africa (both northern and sub-Saharan), Southeast Asia, Oceania, Latin America, and the Antilles. It also features an important collection of textiles. Masterpieces of tribal art are shown side by side with objects of daily life, and the exhibits are enhanced with audio and video documentation and interactive displays.
The museum’s collection is particularly well documented and includes some 160,000 objects and 100,000 photographs.