Draft:Royal Collections of the Netherlands

• Comment: This should read more like an encyclopaedic text and not a “ catalogus text”. Best, Reading Beans 04:59, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

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Royal House Archives, the building in which the Dutch Royal Collections are housed

Inside the library of the Royal House Archives housed in the right wing of the building. In the foreground a statue of William the Silent can be seen.

The Dutch Royal Archives, a part of the Dutch Royal House, are the managers of the Dutch Royal (historical) collections. These collections are the Dutch equivalent of the British royal collections.

Before the 19th century the Netherlands did not have a Monarchy but instead had a political system with hereditary Stadtholders who owned big private collections of estates and houses filled with furniture, art, books and archives. When the last Stadtholder of the Netherlands William V had to flee the Netherlands when the French invaded in 1795 he left behind most of this properties. The new rulers decided to make this property State property.

After the defeat of the French under Napoleon in 1813 his son William I of the Netherlands returned and was crowned King of the newly formed United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814. He decided not to reclaim all of this property but to leave especcially the art collections in public ownership to create what would later become the base of the collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

The house archives exist in recent form since 1825, first just as a collection of the important family archives, later a library and collections related to the House of Orange were added. The collections are privately owned by members of the Dutch Royal Family or are place in different foundations. The biggest of these foundations is the House of Orange-Nassau Historic Collections Trust (SHVON). Queen Maxima of the Netherlands is chair to this foundation.

Because of the role played by the House of Orange-Nassau in Dutch society, past and present, and that of other countries in Europe and around the globe, many of the items in the Royal Collections of the Netherlands are closely associated with important events and periods of Dutch or world history. The archives, library works, documentation and photographs held in the Royal Collections of the Netherlands provide information about this history and use an active loan policy so national and international musea can apply for loans from the different collections. As the archives and other collections are privately owned the reigning monarch of the Netherlands has to give permission for research in, or loans from the collection.

Housing

The collections and it's staff are housed in the Royal House Archives (in Dutch; Koninklijk Huisarchief) next to the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague. The building was designed by squire J.P.E. van Hoeufft van Velsen, intendant of the Dutch royal palaces.. It is build in neo-Renaissance style. Construction of this building started in 1896 and it was ready for use in 1899. The first stone of the building was laid by the then 16 year old princess Wilhelmina (the later Queen of the Netherlands) in presence of her mother Queen Emma who ordered the construction of the building as part of her efforts to make the importance of the House of Orange-Nassau for the Dutch state more tangible and visible. She made great effort to achieve this after the death of her husband King William III, under whose reign the monarchy had suffered a major dent, as well as as a counterweight to the rise of political parties that seemed to want to get rid of the Royal Family as an important Dutch institution.

Collection

The collection of the Royal Collections can be found in the Dutch Palaces and royal institutions;

• Noordeinde Palace
• Huis Ten Bosch Palace
• Royal Palace Amsterdam
• Royal Stables
• and former palace, now museum Het Loo Palace

As well as in government buildings and musea on a national as well as an international level.

Examples of important pieces in the collections are;

• One of the only remaining letters of the hand of the world famous painter Rembrandt van Rijn to Christian Huygens
• Two portraits by Joos van Cleve of Archduke Charles V and his wife Archdutchess Eleonora of Austria
• 16th century table knife of William the Silent, the Dutch statesman who is seen as the founding father of the Netherlands
• 17th century Order of the Garter belt bag and the last undervest (worn at his death bed) of William III of England (who also was Stadthouder of the Dutch Republic)
• Full early 19th century Order of the Garter costume worn by king William I of the Netherlands
• Four original military maps printed in 1815 of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte retreived from his coach after the battle of Waterloo
• Wexy, the mounted warhorse that (the later Dutch King) William II rode at the battle of Waterloo as commander of the 1st Allied Corps under the Duke of Wellington as well as his original fur lined uniform jacket, sabre, the field canteen used by him during the Peninsular War, and a honorary sabre received by him from Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington for his service as his Aide-de-camp during the Peninsular Campaign
• A fan set with diamonds and rubies by the famous French jeweler Mellerio dits Meller used by Queen Emma of the Netherlands

In 2022 a research was launched in order of the reigning King Willem-Alexander after the provenance of the Colonial objects in the Royal Collections of the Netherlands. The goal is to find out if there are objects in the collection which might be unfairly obtained in the former (Dutch) colonies and if they might be returned to the rightfull owner.