The Lost Museum: Royal Cabinet of Rarities in the Mauritshuis - Softcover

Rinnooy Kan, Justine; Reda, Sheila

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9462625719 ISBN 13: 9789462625716

Publisher: Waanders Publishers, 2024

Synopsis

• Over 200 years ago, the Mauritshuis hosted two museums. The Royal Cabinet of Rarities closed in 1875, and its collection was dispersed
• An exhibition runs at the Hague from 12 September 2024 to 5th January 2025, and this publication accompanies it, and explores its history

Over 200 years ago, the Mauritshuis hosted not one, but two museums. On the upper floor was the Royal Cabinet of Paintings, while on the ground floor, thousands of objects of all kinds were on display in the Royal Cabinet of Rarities. This rarities cabinet closed in 1875 and the objects were distributed to various Dutch institutions. The temporary exhibition The Vanished Museum about this Royal Cabinet of Rarities is accompanied by a publication with essays by 30 experts, including curators of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Wereldmuseum in Leiden. In relatively short texts, the reader is taken through the rich and often complex history of the institution. The diverse topics and perspectives suit the motley nature of the collection. From a text about an unusual ivory Chinese puzzle ball, to a reflection on the formation of cultural stereotypes; from a kayak on the ceiling, to a hat that turns out not to belong to Willem van Oranje after all.

About this title

About the Author

Justine Rinnooy Kan - Curator, Mauritshuis in Den Haag (The Hague), The Netherlands. Sheila Reda - Junior Curator, Mauritshuis in Den Haag (The Hague), The Netherlands. Martine Gosselink is General Director of the Mauritshuis. Before joining the Rijksmuseum, Gosselink was a partner and co-founder of the cultural collective De Nieuwe Collectie. Since 1995, she has worked on exhibitions, publications and cultural projects for museums in countries including the Netherlands, New York, Iran and Sri Lanka. In 1995, she completed her studies with Professor Ernst van der Wetering at the University of Amsterdam (17th-century art history).

From the Back Cover

The year 1822 saw the opening of not one but two museums in the Mauritshuis. On the upper floor was the Royal Cabinet of Paintings. On the ground floor, over 10,000 objects from all over the world were exhibited in what was called the Royal Cabinet of Rarities. In 1883 the latter was removed from the building and its collection split up between the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the precursor of the Wereldmuseum in Leiden. The huge diversity of subject matter in the essays in this book captures the eclectic nature of the Cabinet: from an intriguing ivory Chinese puzzle ball to the formation of cultural stereotypes, from a two-metre-long model of Deshima to a hat that turns out not to have belonged to William of Orange after all. And was the Inuk in his kayak really a stuffed human being – or just a dummy? In 30 essays, experts discuss the Royal Cabinet of Rarities from a dizzying range of perspectives. Despite this diversity, certain recurrent themes stand out, such as nationalistic propaganda and myth-formation, a deeply embedded colonial Zeitgeist, and the effect of the skewed balance of power in international relations on the Cabinet’s collection.

Edition details

• Publisher: Waanders Publishers
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9462625719
• ISBN 13: 9789462625716
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176