Museums - Wereldmuseum

The impressive collection of the Wereldmuseum (World Museum) dates back to 1885, at which time private donors as well as institutions gave collections of “exotica” to the museum. Since the end of the 1980s, the renovated museum has also been showing contemporary works, photographs, and films. In 1997, the museum acquired a unique collection of European objects that illustrates the confrontations and exchanges between Western and foreign cultures.
The museum’s ethnographic holdings consist of over 200,000 pieces, of which 35,000 are from Oceania, 15,000 from Africa, 9,000 from the Americas, and 29,000 from Indonesia. It also has 10,000 textiles from all over the world. The Oceanic works are primarily from former Dutch colonies and entered the museum as a result of scientific expeditions or through exchanges with German museums. The largest known Asmat ancestor pole, which measures fourteen meters, is noteworthy among the objects displayed on the first floor. In recent years, the museum has focused on Australian Aborigine acquisitions. The African collection was developed thanks to the participation of over 300 collectors. The museum’s objects from Angola and Liberia date to the end of the nineteenth century. The Americas collection, which consists mostly of Northwest Coast material, was acquired from the British Museum, and the Surinam objects came from a gift from Queen Beatrix. There is also a Pre-Columbian collection worthy of mention. Donations from Dutch missionary associations are the foundation of the Indonesian collection, which is currently being enlarged through the acquisition of textiles.
The museum’s masterpieces are on permanent display in a section called “The Treasury,” which offers visitors a three-story panorama of the world of non-European arts.