This book deals with the origins of the present-day National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, and covers the period from 1816 to 1883.

With the foundation of the Royal Cabinet of Rarities in The Hague in 1816, a transformation took place from mainly private collections to national state-owned collections. The founding of the Royal Cabinet was one of the first attempts to create something like a National Museum. This book traces the purposes and motives of private collecting and the emergence of cabinets of curiosities, the composition of the collections, and the move towards a National Museum. At the time of its establishment, the Royal Cabinet of Rarities consisted of a bequest of mainly Chinese objects, objects from the Royal House, and objects concerning the national history of the Netherlands. However, the first director of this Royal Cabinet, R.P. van de Kasteele, actively stimulated civil servants and travellers to collect for the cabinet and before long, the focus moved to Japan. Through the VOC settlement at Deshima, VOC officials had a unique access to things Japanese. The three main collectors in Japan in the first half of the nineteenth century were Jan Cock Blomhoff, Johannes van Overmeer Fisscher, and Philip Franz Von Siebold.

Von Siebold established himself and his private collection in Leiden in 1832. This collection was considered a branch of the cabinet in The Hague, initially known as Rijks Japansch Museum Von Siebold. Conrad Leemans, then director of the Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities), took over the management from Von Siebold in 1859. In 1864, the name changed to Rijks Ethnographisch Museum (National Museum of Ethnography). Leemans concentrated on the Netherlands East Indies, present-day Indonesia. His successor, Serrurier, who took over in 1880, was the first director with an ethnological background. Meanwhile, The Royal Cabinet in The Hague was popular with the public until its closure in 1883 when the ethnographic collections were finally united in Leiden, and where they still form the basis of the National Museum of Ethnology.

Rudolf Effert studied Cultural Anthropology in Leiden and obtained his Ph.D. in 2003. His research concerns the history of Dutch Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, on which he has published several monographs and articles, including Vol. 7 in the CNWS Publications Series. This book is based on extensive research in the archives of the Royal Cabinet of Rarities. In this book, Effert proposes new perspectives on the relationship between the three main collectors in Japan in the first half of the nineteenth century and he argues that the scholarly contributions of two of them, Cock Blomhoff and Overmeer Fisscher, have been seriously underestimated.

(In English, 340 pp. ill., incl. index, bibl. and annexes)

(In English, 260 pp. ill.)

The first Dutch ethnographic collections from West Central Africa were formed in the late nineteenth century. Between 1876 ? 1889, thanks to the ?on the spot' presence of the Afrikaansche Handelsvereeniging (the African Trading Association) and its successor, the Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handelsvennootschap (the New African Trading Company), several thousands of ethnographic items were acquired by various Dutch museums. After the establishment of the Congo Free State in 1885, however, it became more difficult to collect directly objects from this part of Africa.

This study is the first extensive enquiry into the collecting of Africana by late nineteenth century Dutch museums. These collecting campaigns took place during the last days of the great African explorations, notably by Livingstone and Burton from Great Britain, Du Chaillu and Stanley from the USA, and Bastian from Germany. These travellers had outspoken ideas about African morals and customs and about the meaning and significance of material objects. The author of this study argues that the acquisition history of Africana in Dutch museums corresponds directly with the beliefs of the great explorers and with the dominant evolutionary theories that were then current in the Western world. These stipulated that people could be placed in a hierarchy of races and sub-races. Within this context, the author compares the late nineteenth century Dutch collections in the museums in Leiden, Amsterdam and Rotterdam to similar collections in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin; the Musée de Trocadéro, Paris; the British Museum, London, and the Sociedade de Geographía in Lisbon.

Robert Joost Willink, a historian by training, started this study while a Senior Advisor at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (Instituut Collectie Nederland) in Amsterdam. Cultural historical research into the origins of museum collections has formed the core of his professional work for more than a quarter of a century.

(In English, 390 pp. ill.)

Since the 1980s, the study of material culture has become a central focus in cultural anthropology. This book explores the philosophical roots and reviews recent studies of this anthropological discourse. Based on his own experience of working intensively with museum collections throughout the world, Pieter ter Keurs proposes a new approach towards material objects.

It is now generally acknowledged that material objects are dynamic entities in culture. In this study the author suggests that this flexible approach towards form and meaning is, however, not useful without fully recognizing the materiality of the object. He argues that the inherent static nature of matter is crucial in shaping cultural realities. Objects are best seen as items in which reality is materialized, or condensed . Apart from condensation he looks at the opposite process of evaporation, namely of extracting meanings from their material bases when viewed in different contexts.

The concrete ethnographic examples illustrating this model come from Papua New Guinea (the Siassi Islands) and Indonesia (Enggano Island).

On the Siassi Islands extensively decorated wooden bowls play a major role in local ritual life and in the trade with neighbouring people. The designs on the bowls can be interpreted as being part of the mariam complex: a system of mythical beings that was of crucial importance in pre-Christian Siassi. The mariam beings no longer appear during rituals, but their presence is secured (condensed) in the carvings the Siassi people still make.

On Enggano Island the main designs used in the woodcarvings represent images of slain enemies. In former ritual life the carvings were meant to secure the welfare of society and to stimulate fertility of the people and the soil. Nowadays the people of Enggano no longer remember much of their old culture. In Jakarta their woodcarvings have acquired a new meaning, in the sense that they are found for sale as tourist items representing indigenous "primitive" objects. The author introduces the concept evaporation to indicate that although the materiality of the objects is similar (they "look" the same), their meanings have completely changed.

Pieter ter Keurs is curator for Indonesian collections at the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology), Leiden, the Netherlands.

(In English, 240 pp. ill.)

This richly illustrated volume presents the first systematic treatment of the history of ethnographic collecting in Indonesia. Written by experienced curators and museum anthropologists, the book reveals a host of hitherto neglected records, uncovering the widely diverging reasons for acquiring and appreciating exotic artefacts from foreign peoples in Nusantara, the emerald string of Indonesian islands scattered over the Indian Ocean.
Sixteen contributors from seven European, North American, and Asian countries shed new light on the centuries-old process of dislocation and appropriation of cultural property from the Indonesian archipelago. In fourteen chapters they go into the motives and methods of individual collectors in Indonesia, and the acquisition policies of museums with a focus on Indonesia. Topics range from the biographies of international collector-personalities to the history of major museum collections from Indonesia.
The museums discussed are four in the Netherlands (Leiden, Delft, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam), two in Germany (Cologne and Frankfurt), and one each in Denmark (Copenhagen), Italy (Florence), Switzerland (Basle), the USA (Washington, D.C.), and Indonesia (Jakarta).

The book will be required reading for museum curators, historians of anthropology, specialists in material culture, and anyone interested in the arts and crafts of Island Southeast Asia.
(In English, 324 pp. incl. photogr.)

'Treasure hunting? hopes to break new ground in its systematic and comparative approach, and in this it is largely successful, providing a wealth of historical information and at the same time offering important insights into the social factors and individual motivations that have shaped the history of museum collecting in Indonesia and of Indonesian collections in Europe and America.' - Ian Fairweather in: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10 (1) (March 2004)