Provenance # 6 WMR

provenance #6

Edited

by Karolien Nédée, Daantje van de Linde, Erdogan Aykaç

© 2025 Wereldmuseum

Provenance volume 6 was edited by Karolien Nédée, Daantje van de Linde, Erdogan Aykaç.

General editing by Fanny Wonu Veys, curator Oceania at the Wereldmuseum.

Lay-out: Sidestone Press, Leiden

Cover design: Buro Millennial, Leiden

ISBN 978-94-6426-438-8

Karolien Nédée, Daantje van de Linde, Erdogan Aykaç 13 Tracing the mission in the museum: Papuan collections from the Utrechtse Zendingsvereniging in the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

Amélie Roussillon

In between movements and meanings: Nkisi Mabiala Mandembe’s trajectory into the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

Daantje van de Linde

World War II-Era provenance research at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

Karwin Cheung and Anna Koopstra

Life beyond the grave: Qutb al Aqtab Rashid ed Din’s steles at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

Karolien Nédée

81 Tides and currents: Different meanings, shifting values, and changing objects

Erdogan Aykaç

99 Documentary photographer Yara Jimmink: Ways of understanding my family history

Marjolein van Asdonck

Foreword

Mirjam Hoijtink

Provenance is modelled on the French verb provenir, meaning ‘to come forth, originate’, which is ultimately a compound of Latin pro-, meaning ‘forth’, and venire, ‘to come’. In 19th century museums, origin was defined as the place of ‘discovery’ by Europeans, regardless of the origin of manufacture. In addition, the knowledge systems of complex societies in which objects came into being were ignored. Ever since, in provenance histories, the wealth and power of subsequent owners determine the economic value of objects, ranking them in a capitalist pedigree.

Provenance research at the Wereldmuseum takes a different stance, as it aims to critically understand collections in the wider context of cultural and institutional histories and the networks within which objects functioned. In doing so, it contributes to academic, societal, political and institutional post-colonial global discourse of the last decades. Colonialism is not restricted to past and current geopolitical realities. One way of understanding colonialism is to acknowledge the deeply rooted Eurocentric attitude that projects Western knowledge systems such as chronology and taxonomy onto the interpretation and categorisation of world culture

objects. Provenance research attempts to better understand objects and their diaspora. Knowledge exchange and dialogues with Indigenous and diasporic communities, aim at respecting and giving agency to the various life-worlds in which objects came into being.

Provenance #6 is entirely dedicated to research into the collections of Wereldmuseum Rotterdam (WMR) that since its foundation underwent several transformations, which can be traced in different names over time, as will be exemplified in the current volume. Since 2017 the museum forms a personnel union with the National Museum of World Cultures (NMVW); the public name for all locations (including Amsterdam and Leiden) changed to Wereldmuseum in 2023. All collections can be visited on-line via https://collectie.wereldmuseum.nl, a substantial part of it via the Colonial Collections Datahub: https://app. colonialcollections.nl/en.

In 2019 the NMVW published principles for restitution of objects collected in colonial contexts, eventually followed by the 2020 report of the Advisory Committee on the National Policy Framework for Colonial Collections chaired by Lilian GonçalvesHo Kang You, which became effectively implemented in 2022. The Municipality of Rotterdam, owner of the collections kept in the Wereldmuseum was the first local government to follow

National Restitution policy. In 2024 it returned 68 objects from Lombok and Bali to Indonesia and in 2025, 6 objects from the historical kingdom of Benin to Nigeria.1 WMR also took part in research into acquisitions made in the period 1933-1948; the report can be accessed at the Wereldmuseum Library (bibliotheek@wereldmuseum.nl).2

As shown in previous volumes of Provenance, research at the Wereldmuseum is not restricted to national policy and research agendas. It shows the responsibility the museum takes to urge and inspire curators, provenance researchers and artists, driven by curiosity, to collaboratively reflect on western principles of knowledge formation and stakeholder policies. In doing so, provenance research aims to widen accessibility to collections, to share and exchange knowledge, to better represent world cultures in the museum, and to take a role in the repair of historical injustices.

1 Provenance research, applied to these requests for restitution is accessible via https://committee.kolonialecollecties.nl/ publications?size=n_10_n.

2 Wereldmuseum Rotterdam aims to include this research of Museale Verwervingen 1940-1948 en Museale Verwervingen vanaf 1933 in the WO2 portal of collectienederland.nl.

Introduction

Karolien Nédée, Daantje van de Linde, Erdogan Aykaç

This sixth edition of Provenance is dedicated to 140 years of the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam (WMR). In 1885, the museum opened its doors at the Willemskade as the Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde. 1 The foundation of this ethnographic museum can be seen as part of a wider development visible at the local, regional and national level. At the local level, the museum was in some way a continuation of the Royal Yacht Club (1846-1882), which was housed in the same building. The collections of the members of this Yacht Club, who were part of the economic elite, were mainly formed through a colonial framework of trade and so-called scientific and military expeditions. These collections were later transformed into the core of the museums’ collections. At the regional level, the second half of the 19th century marked the development and growth of various ethnographic museums among European

1 Since, the museum has undergone two name changes: Museum voor Volkenkunde (1986) and Wereldmuseum Rotterdam (2000).

colonial powers. On a national level, this was visible with the emergence of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam and Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden, but also across Europe, like the British Museum in London and the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. Ever since the founding of the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, its collections have been expanding continuously and currently comprise roughly 80,000 objects. The circumstances under which these objects have been collected and subsequently taken care of by the museum, however, have changed incessantly in the course of time.

One shift that is important to mention happened in 2017, when the museum became a partner of the National Museum of World Cultures (NMVW, Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen), comprising the Wereldmuseum Leiden and the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam. Within this umbrella organisation, provenance research has advanced into an important aspect of the care for collections, both the national (Amsterdam and Leiden) and municipal (Rotterdam) ones. Provenance research lays the groundwork for a better understanding of collections and their histories. As Henrietta Lidchi wrote in 2022, provenance research ‘means a consistent attention to the documentation and contextualisation of collections’ (Provenance #3 2022: 11). Such consistency in research is

especially important to challenge colonial practices, histories and legacies at the institutional and national level. Additionally, the interrupted institutional histories of the museum left large parts of the collections undocumented, and archives dispersed across multiple locations.

As mentioned in the preface, WMR actively supports and contributes to debates and policies regarding restitution, which recently resulted in the return of collections to their rightful owners. Firstly, two Singa palace statues from Lombok and sixty-six objects from South Bali were returned to Indonesia, in 2024. Secondly, in February 2025 the restitution of six Benin objects to Nigeria was formalised. A lot of work remains to be done, however. This volume does so by enhancing further efforts to document, understand, and communicate about the collections under the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam’s care. Through six contributions, it adds new layers of knowledge to objects and collections, with particular attention to the histories of injustice they remain part of.

The first article, by Amélie Roussillon, results from postdoctoral research on missionary collections as part of the NWO-funded project Pressing Matter Its offers new understandings of the impact of missionary practices on the WMR collection, by looking at the presence of the Utrechtse Zendingsvereeniging in Northwestern

New Guinea. It shows that the influence of the Protestant missionaries on the WMR collection was significantly larger than previously assumed. Nearly a thousand items reached the museum at different points in time, all going through UZV missionaries (active between 1859 and 1951), who were able to function as collectors as well as gatekeepers in broader collecting networks. Methodologically, the article demonstrates how meticulous research into individual collectors’ profiles is crucial in the process of identifying broader collection structures.

Daantje van de Linde, provenance researcher for the Africa collection at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, focuses on the physical and discursive journey of nkisi Mabiala Mandembe, a power figure on display in the permanent exhibition Rotterdam Crossroads. The article looks into what Van de Linde calls the physical and intangible abduction of this nkisi from the Loango people in Central Africa, and identifies the subsequent chain of European possessors until its arrival at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. By examining each actor’s motivations and the meanings they projected onto this nkisi, the article offers broader insights into colonial collecting, revealing how stripping objects of their context disrupted societal systems and how the statue’s display and interpretation reinforced a colonial mindset in the Netherlands.

In their article, Karwin Cheung, senior provenance researcher with Pressing Matter, and Anna Koopstra, former WWII provenance researcher at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, investigate purchases at the WMR from just before, during and immediately after the Second World War. Their work provides an overview of wartime acquisitions and qualifies them as (semi-) problematic, while addressing the financial constructions that enabled these acquisitions at the time. The article gives insight into the – often complex – intersection between problematic acquisitions dating to the WWII and the provenances of ‘ethnographic objects’ collected in colonial contexts. The article demonstrates how these histories may come together in the story of a single object, through provenance research into two large Chinese statues purchased by the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam in 1943.

Karolien Nédée, provenance researcher at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, delves into the provenance of a pair of grave steles purchased around the 1970s and traces them back to a mausoleum in Bidvaz, Iran. The article demonstrates that, in spite of absent archival documentation, the use of alternative research methods such as object analyses can lead to a known provenance too. Such research can counter narratives in which objects are used to support generic

‘ethnographic’ ideas instead of being valued for their historical, genealogical and religious particularity. This article also argues that, although art market objects bought around and after the UNESCO 1970 Convention are not necessarily marked by direct ties to colonial agents, their provenance may indicate the continuation of unequal power relationships between nations and regions after formal colonisation.

Erdogan Aykaç, curator of Collections, Migration and the City, discusses a series of carved panels and statues copied from reliefs in Angkor Wat, currently dispersed across the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam and the Hoogovens Museum in IJmuiden. He traces the panels to the interior of a ship, which served various purposes across time: a tourism ship between France and its colonies in East Asia, a WWII battleship, and eventually a place to house guestworkers at a steel factory in the Netherlands. Ultimately, the ship was dismantled upon which the woodcarvings ended up in the three museum collections. Using the paradox of the Ship of Theseus, Aykaç raises fundamental questions of provenance research by looking at the multidirectional histories of the objects and questions the extent to which objects remain the same after

they undergo multiple material and immaterial adaptations through time. With the last article, this volume projects the future of the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam while thinking through the past. Marjolein van Asdonck, curator of Southeast Asia, explores the role of contemporary art in the exhibition Colonialism and Rotterdam (December 2023 - November 2024), which examined the city’s colonial history and the ways in which it has left traces to this day. In her article, Van Asdonck invites artist Yara Jimmink to talk about her contribution to the exhibition, called You Can’t Eat It Without Breaking The Shell. In this work, Jimmink brings together family histories, sculpture and photography as a means to work against the grain of existing colonial images and discourse, and to address the absence of diaspora voices in public archives leaving many stories untold.

We are pleased that the authors in this volume have identified both collection (Roussillon, Cheung & Koopstra) and object histories and stories (van de Linde, Nédée, Aykaç,

Van Asdonck) from various regions and acquisition periods. These narratives reveal the museum’s historical ties to the world and how it has navigated these relationships over time. The museum started off as a showcase for colonialism, and cultural and racial hierarchisation (Van de Linde). While varying levels of unequal power relations in colonial collecting practices were integral to its initial years (Roussillon), the museum continued to prioritise enlarging the collection over ethical considerations at later stages as well (Cheung & Koopstra, Nédée). While the current museum still bears the walled-in traces of recent fondness of colonial aesthetics (Aykaç), it is now working to become more selfreflective and builds new ways forward, strengthening resilience and new imaginaries (Van Asdonck).

Tracing the mission in the museum:

Papuan collections from the Utrechtse Zendingsvereniging in the Wereldmuseum

Rotterdam

Amélie Roussillon

Introduction

This article stems from ongoing research on missionary collections and collecting practices for the NWO-funded project ‘Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value, and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums’. As part of this project, I have been focusing on missionary collecting in former Dutch New Guinea, in particular on the collections acquired by Protestant missionaries. From the mid-19th century, the western part of the island of New Guinea became the scene of Dutch evangelisation, from both Protestant and Catholic denominations. A geographical religious divide

Figure 1. Map of western New Guinea (with the main UZV posts in 1909 circled in red), adapted from Valeton 1909.

was agreed upon, and although this division became less clear over time, the northern part of the island remained the terrain of Protestant missions, while the Catholics settled mostly along the southern coast. German Lutheran missionaries established a first mission post at Mansinam Island in 1855, and were shortly joined and eventually replaced by the Protestant missionaries of the Utrechtse Zendingsvereniging (Utrecht Missionary Society – UZV, active from 1859 to 1951)1 who settled along the Geelvink Bay (today Cenderawasih

1 The UZV archives are today kept in Het Utrechts Archief, access numbers 1102-1 (‘Raad voor de Zending: rechtsvoorgangers’, 1797-1950), 1102-2 (‘Raad voor de Zending van de Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk’, 1950-2001) and 1567 (‘Foto’s van de Raad voor de Zending van de Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk’, ca. 1863-2008).

Bay) and further east along the coast.2 Catholic missionaries (in particular Missionaries of the Sacred Heart from Tilburg) settled 50 years later on the southern coast, with a first post at Merauke, established in 1905. It is also worth noting that the colonial post of Hollandia (modern Jayapura) was only established in 1909, and that very few conversions were observed before 1907, that is more than 50 years after the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries in western New Guinea (fig. 1).

With this background in mind, this article proposes to look more closely at the large collection held by the

2 The UZV also established missionary posts in the Moluccas, in Bali and in the South Sulawesi, but the collections they acquired there are beyond the scope of this research.

Wereldmuseum Rotterdam (formerly known as Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde, henceforth referred to as the WMR) of almost a thousand items acquired mostly at the turn of the 20th century on the northern coast of western New Guinea by UZV missionaries. However, such a collection is not composed of a monolithic assemblage of items, but is formed by a multitude of additions which reached the Netherlands and the WMR at different points in time. This paper therefore aims to piece back the UZV Papuan collections and to recollect their various trajectories, in order to draw a nuanced overview of the UZV collecting practices in New Guinea. Through the prism of the collection held in the WMR, it will foreground the role these Protestant missionaries played in the broader colonial network that operated between the Netherlands and western New Guinea. Not only did they engage in collecting activities themselves, but they also acted, through their local anchorage and relations, as gatekeepers for other collecting actors and institutions. This article therefore proposes to rethink the collecting history of the UZV in light of an entangled history of conversion, trade and scientific knowledge.

From the UZV museum to the Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde

The first UZV missionaries arrived in New Guinea in 1863 and settled in Doreh (on the coast just across Mansinam Island). From that point onward, and although the initial general provisions of the Society gave no specific instructions in this respect, UZV missionaries started collecting Papuan objects, but also natural specimens, that they sent back to their mission museum in Utrecht. Yet, it remains unclear where the collection was kept and displayed before 1873. From that year, the UZV started to rent a house in Utrecht on Mariaplaats, which became not only the residence of its director, but also included the UZV museum (open to the public one day a week), library and archives. In 1883, the UZV relocated to Janskerkhof 18, where they bought a larger house which, on top of the aforementioned spaces, could also host missionary students. Very little remains with regard to the museum, despite the building still standing today as one of the locations of the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht No floor plan nor catalogue3 has been found so far. However, a photographic

3 According to the 1906 WMR annual report, the catalogue of the UZV collection numbered 879 ethnographic items before the closure of the UZV museum (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-5.1)

Figure 2. Portrait of G.A. Hulsebos in the UZV museum, 1897, anonymous photographic print mounted on card, 8,5 × 11,5 cm, Het Utrechts Archief, 105101.

portrait dated 1897 of one of its curators, Dr. G.A. Hulsebos4, does give us a glimpse of the UZV collection and how it was displayed in Utrecht at the time (fig. 2). From what can be seen on the photograph, the objects were relatively neatly displayed in glass

4 Hulsebos was not a missionary himself, but a teacher of classical languages and vice-rector of the Stedelijk Gymnasium in Utrecht until 1897. He was in charge of the museum from 1897 until he was replaced by the former missionary W.L. Jens in 1903.

cabinets, either hung at the back of the cases or laid on shelves, organised by typology and/or use (the showcase to the right, for example, seems to be dedicated to Papuan body adornments).

Unfortunately, the UZV had to sell their main building in 1906, and the museum consequently closed its doors. At the request of Johannes François Snelleman, director of the WMR, most of what were considered ‘ethnographic’ objects were then transferred on

loan to the museum in Rotterdam.5

Unfortunately, no information could be retrieved concerning the selection process (if any there was) that led to this loan. The UZV acknowledged that beyond the fact that this transfer would allow them to save money as they would not have to invest in another museum space, it would also allow for the objects to be better displayed and would in turn benefit the mission in helping raise awareness of its work (Valeton 1909: 23). It may seem counterintuitive for the collection to be transferred to Rotterdam, and not to another institution in Utrecht. However, this resulted in part from the decision taken in 1904 to combine the education of UZV missionary trainees with those of the Nederlandsch Zendeling Genootschap (NZG), which was based in Rotterdam. There, a Dutch Missionary School, located in the mission house of the NZG, was jointly established by both organisations (Valeton 1909: 19). Keeping the UZV collection close at hand was therefore considered beneficial for the training of future missionaries.

Interestingly, most of the objects that can be seen on the 1897 photograph are today part of

5 On the other hand, natural specimens were acquired by the Board of the Natuurhistorisch Museum (today Naturalis, Leiden), while some other items were retained by the UZV as teaching and propaganda materials, and others were sold for the benefit of the mission (BUZV 1906 (9): 127–128).

the WMR collection. The list of items transferred from the UZV museum to the WMR was compiled in 1907 by A.J. van Noordwijk, Assistant to the Director of the WMR, in a document which includes not only the new inventory numbers, but also the former UZV numbers, in most cases also found directly inscribed on the objects (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-4.48.3). These 742 objects coming from the different mission UZV posts,6 including 379 coming from New Guinea, constitute the core of the UZV collection, and were consequently divided and integrated within the following categories by the Rotterdam museum: food, drink, stimulants; clothing and body adornments; architecture and household; fishing and hunting; agriculture; transport; trade; industry; weapons and warfare; music, dance and toys; religion, education and miscellaneous. After almost 50 years, the UZV collection was eventually donated to the WMR in 1955. The UZV collection stands out not only by the quantity, antiquity7 and variety of items gathered, exceeding the typology of objects that would most of the time be associated with missionary

6 Inventory numbers WM-10901 to WM-11752.

7 In part due to the fact that UZV missionaries remained for almost 50 years the only permanently established European actors in western New Guinea, before the establishment of a colonial administrative post at Manokwari in 1898 and eventually of Hollandia in 1909.

collecting (i.e. framed as ‘idols’, ‘amulets’ and the like by missionaries) but also going against the iconoclastic tendencies often ascribed to Protestant missionaries (Corbey 2003). For most of the objects in the UZV collection, very little documentation was compiled at the time of their acquisition. In most cases, we do not know which specific missionary collected them, with a few exceptions for which it was possible to trace back who the collector was.

This is the case of Gerardus Lodewijk Bink (active in New Guinea between 1870 and 1899) who collected at least 18 items part of the UZV collection.8 Bink became the first missionary (and one of the first Europeans) to travel to the Humboldt Bay (today Yos Sudarso Bay) and to visit Lake Sentani at the end of 1893. He was sent out by the UZV at the request of the Royal Dutch Geographical Society (Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, hereafter KNAG).9 Bink’s

8 Inventory numbers WM-10996 to WM-11002, WM-11168 to WM-11170, WM-11178, WM11374, WM-11375, WM-11602, WM-11604 and WM-11607 to WM-11609.

9 Founded in 1873, the KNAG organised expeditions into territories yet unknown to European powers, supporting colonial exploration and expansion, and by extension trade and industry. The KNAG seemed to have regular contacts with the UZV, in particular its director M.A. Adriani, who also provided a report on the resources and production in New Guinea, based on the observations of UZV missionaries in the field (Kan & Timmerman 1894: 319).

trip to Humboldt Bay and Lake Sentani was not part of a KNAG scientific expedition but was in line with the willingness of the KNAG to gather further knowledge on that region of New Guinea, at a time when the colonial post of Hollandia had not yet been established: ‘At our request, missionary Bink made a trip to Humboldt Bay in the last part of 1893 and stayed there for three months, in order to get to know the country and its people better’ (Kan & Timmerman 1894: 325, translated from Dutch).10 His threemonth trip was therefore conducted in the prospect of evangelisation, but more generally as a reconnaissance trip. For his journey, he relied on a number of actors, especially Dutch and Chinese traders for accommodation and transport (also to ship collected objects back to his mission post in the Geelvink Bay), as well as on local informants and assistants. His travel account was then published in 1896 under the title Drie Maanden aan de Humboldtsbaai (Three Months at the Humboldt Bay) (Bink 1896). This testimony is instructive for a number of reasons, but especially as he reports having collected several objects, some of which were later sent back to the UZV museum in Utrecht:

I have mentioned quite a nice collection of objects, such as: axes, hammers, pots, a stone water barrel,

10 This and all translations from Dutch to English are the author’s.

a canoe, a large Karakarau [ancestral figure], all kinds of woodcarving, a fishing net, bags, a native drum, etc. etc. Also red, earthen stones, including a piece from which axes are made; ornaments of the people when they are celebrating in the Karawari [ceremonial house], or in front of it; earrings, bracelets, nose ornaments, wooden ornaments, etc. I hope to send all this to the museum of the Utrecht Missionary Society (Bink 1896: 70, translated from Dutch).

The items he collected during his 1893 trip and that eventually made their way to the WMR therefore constitute some of the earliest known testimonies to the Humboldt Bay and Lake Sentani material culture.11

Finally, between 1909 and 1914, another 176 objects from western New Guinea were transferred on loan by the UZV to the WMR (also officially donated in 1955 to WMR), including 107 items collected by missionary Frans J.F. van Hasselt (active in New Guinea between 1894 and 1931),12 one of the most prolific missionary collectors from the UZV, especially from 1907 onward. This was a time when, after more

11 For a more complete overview of European (collecting) expeditions in western New Guinea, see Veys 2018. 12 Inventory numbers WM-17097 to WM17099, WM-17634 to WM-17637, WM19632 to WM-19740.

than 50 years of relative failure in converting Papuans, UZV missionaries observed a ‘conversion turn’, leading to an influx in the number of items, which became available for collection. Several possible and intertwined reasons have been suggested to explain such a turn, which could have been caused by the long presence of a network of schools and missionary posts along the Geelvink Bay, coupled with the resurgence of koreri rituals, an indigenous millenarian movement (BUZV 1908 (9): 117–122; Corbey & Weener 2015: 6–7; Corbey 2019: 39).

Collecting for the Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde

Beyond collecting for their missionary museum in Utrecht, and sometimes even before its closure, a number of UZV missionaries also directly collected objects as well as photographs13 on behalf of other collectors and institutions. These collections evidence the essential role of missionaries as field collectors, alongside their evangelisation activities, at the heart of larger colonial networks, in turn feeding back into homeland institutions. The contribution of UZV missionaries to trade and scientific networks is especially visible in their contact with

13 The photographic collections of the WMR are now kept by the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam.

museum directors (in particular of the WMR) and traders, as will be illustrated in the examples below.

A case in point is Johan Andries van Balen (active in New Guinea from 1883 to 1912, mostly on Roon Island and from 1889 in Windesi), who, as early as 1902, corresponded with J.F. Snelleman about the acquisition of a number of objects for the museum in Rotterdam. A total of 53 inventoried items14 and a series of photographs15 has been identified in the WMR collection, shipped to the museum between 1904 and 1913. Among these, it is worth pointing out three barkcloth cloaks made by women and which would have been worn by

14 Inventory numbers WM-7323 to WM7346; WM-8542 to WM-8565; and WM20282 to WM-20288.

15 Nederlands Fotomuseum, inventory numbers WMR-412735-1, WMR-412735-2, WMR-413015, WMR-413469, WMR-413471, WMR-413476, WMR-413477, WMR-413503, WMR-413512, WMR-417241, WMR-430632, WMR-430633, WMR-435690 to WMR-435693, WMR-435695, WMR-902428 to WMR-902431, WMR-905041, WMR-905044, WMR905046 to WMR-905058, WMR-905059-2, WMR-905065-1, WMR-905065-2, WMR905069-1 to WMR-905072-2, WMR-905086, WMR-906070-2, WMR-906070-3, WMR906072-2, WMR-906073-2, WMR-906074-1, WMR-906094, WMR-906096, WMR-906101, WMR-907643, WMR-908226, WMR-908227, WMR-908233, WMR-908235 to WMR-908239, WMR-908243-1, WMR-908243-2, WMR908245, WMR-908246, WMR-908249 to WMR-908251, WMR-908254, WMR-908278, WMR-909198 and WMR-909199.

female relatives of a deceased during mourning (fig. 3).16

In a letter dated 27 June 1902 to Snelleman, van Balen mentions the difficulty to acquire such objects, which would have never been sold, even after having completed their original purpose; indeed, they would usually be burnt after the mourning period. He adds: ‘Moreover, the pagan religion

16 Inventory numbers WM-7323 to WM-7325.

forbids making mourning cloths for sale’ (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NLRtdWMR-4.45, translated from Dutch). Then, how could these cloaks end up in the WMR collection? Van Balen reveals that a Papuan Christian woman (possibly one of the earlier converts) had accepted to make some mourning cloaks for him on commission. It remains unclear whether the cloaks now in the museum collection were

Figure 3. Women’s mourning cloaks, Windesi, West Papua. Collected by J.A. van Balen in 1904. Barkcloth and cotton, Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, WM-7323/ WM-7324/WM-7325.

the ones in question, if they were ever worn or made for trade. Yet, these mourning cloaks are remarkable for a number of reasons, first of all because they were made and usually worn by women, and generally speaking, few objects belonging to female realms have attracted the attention of collectors. Two of them also include cotton elements, testifying to the complex exchanges with foreign traders and/or missionaries and which long predated the arrival of Europeans (Swadling 2019). To these complex layers of meanings and value, the very fact that they could have been made and sold to van Balen by a converted Papuan Christian woman highlights the role of Papuan individuals in the collecting process. It also illustrates the strategies some UZV missionaries used in order to obtain the objects they desired.

In a similar manner to van Balen, Judicus Metz (1867-1944) also directly collected for the WMR. First based in Andai from 1893, before moving to Roon Island in 1899, and later returning to Doreh Bay in 1901, he personally donated 29 items to the museum between 1902 and 1906.17 These objects are for the most part related to sago preparation, barkcloth making

17 Inventory numbers WM-6998, WM8567 to WM-8589, WM-9096 to WM-9098, WM-11279 and WM-28738. See also Nederlands Fotomuseum, inventory number WMR-908255.

and pottery, which can point towards particular interests of Metz but also to a production made specifically for sale, as can be inferred from the three pots he collected, and which show no trace of use.18

The notion of trade is particularly intriguing in the context of missionary collecting: indeed, UZV missionaries were supposedly not allowed to engage in trade activities for their own benefit or to earn a living. Barter was tolerated, and used to obtain desired items, as on New Guinea ‘no money is prevalent; there, choppers, sarongs, axes, glass beads and the like are what is the currency elsewhere’ (BUZV 1871 (6): 89). The UZV nonetheless sold a number of collected items and specimens to raise funds for the mission. However, all the objects collected by UZV missionaries were donated to the WMR, and no trace of purchase by the museum has been found. Yet, it seems that a number of UZV missionaries circumvented this prescription: as early as 1863, missionary T.F. Klaassen was reporting that missionaries had to engage in trade with Papuans, but that they were ‘forced to do so, because it is the only way to get in touch with these people’ (BUZV 1863 (10): 3).

A specific status was consequently soon created within the UZV, that of missionary trader:

18 Inventory numbers WM-8569, WM8570 and WM-9098.

Figure 4. Detail of an engraved lime container, Numfor Island, Papua. Collected by Th. H. Ruys between 1902 and 1905. Bamboo, wood, cotton, soot. 50,5 × 11,5 cm. Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, WM-8520. Photograph: Amélie Roussillon, 2023.

It has been stressed that the Utrecht Missionary Society does not engage in trade. However, there is a fund, previously raised for a mission ship, which has become superfluous due to the activities of the Royal Packet Navigation Company [Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij, KPM], a fund which has always been administered by the mission society outside its accounts. From this fund, under certain conditions, money for trade

will be lent to the members of the aforementioned committee [for trade in New Guinea] (BUZV 1892 (12): 190, translated from Dutch).

This was the case of Theodorus Hilbert Ruys, based in New Guinea only between 1902 and 1905, who was ‘the commercial agent of the UZV’ (Wichmann 1917: 143), but also an agent of the KPM, with whom the UZV was closely collaborating. Ruys not only collected specimens (in particular

birds of paradise) for what is today Naturalis in Leiden, but also 38 items19 and a series of photographs20 donated to the WMR in 1906. These include, among others, a series of shields, rare stone korwars (ancestor figures), woven bags, as well as 11 engraved bamboo lime containers. Among the latter, the lime container WM-8520 stands out by its depiction of a human figure with a hat and a moustache, most likely the representation of a European man, testifying to the incorporation of longstanding encounters within Papuan representations (fig. 4).

It is not clear until when this status of missionary trader existed within the UZV, but it seems that it remained rather the exception than the rule.

Later on, another 17 objects were donated to the WMR in 1923-24 by missionary Dirk Cornelis Adriaan Bout (active in New Guinea from 1913 to 1930) that he collected on Yapen Island,21 and 4 by missionary J. Wetstein in 1925, coming from southwestern New Guinea and collected while he was working in Fak-Fak,

reflecting the progressive expansion of the UZV mission fields in New Guinea.22

Other UZV-related collections and future avenues for research

Several other series of items acquired by UZV missionaries became part of the WMR collections through more indirect routes, testifying to the pervasive role that these missionaries played as collectors in New Guinea. Being based in the field for long periods of time, and having acquired good knowledge of local languages and customs, they proved to be essential intermediaries for other collectors, by sharing their knowledge and contacts, by providing accommodation and logistical support, or sometimes even collecting on their behalf. In this regard, C.E.A. Wichmann, H.A. Lorentz and G.A.J. van der Sande of the 1903 North New Guinea expedition mention UZV missionaries (among others J.A. van Balen, J.L. and F.J.F. van Hasselt) on multiple occasions in their accounts (Lorentz 1905; van der Sande 1907; Wichmann 1917), in particular in relation to the acquisition of some natural specimens. We can suppose that, in a similar fashion, UZV

19 Inventory numbers WM-8499, WM-509 to WM-8538, WM-8900 to WM-8909.

20 Nederlands Fotomuseum, inventory numbers WMR-905060, WMR-905073 to WMR-905082, WMR-908256-1 and WMR-908256-2.

21 Inventory numbers WM-25957 and WM25958; WM-26116 to WM-26130.

22 Inventory numbers WM-26135, WM-26136, WM-26183 and WM-28184. For more information about these objects, see the 1925 WMR annual report (pp.9–10; plate III) (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-5.4).

missionaries may have collected objects on behalf of the 1903 expedition –items which could be today part of the WMR collection, yet only labelled as originating from this expedition.

By cross-referencing sources, I was able to identify items which, although reaching the WMR after having passed through the hands of multiple collectors and institutions, were initially collected by UZV missionaries. The trajectories of such collections sometimes also reflect the personal stories or inclinations of the missionaries who acquired them in the first place.

For example, in 1943, the ornithologist A.F.C.A. van Heyst donated a series of korwars to the WMR. Among them, six had been collected by missionary and ethnologist Freerk Christiaans Kamma (active in New Guinea from 1931 until 1962) in 1936–37 on the Ayu Islands (in the Raja Ampat),23 and the four others were initially collected by missionary H.J. Agter (active in New Guinea 1920-1951, especially on Biak) on the Schouten Islands.24

Another case in point is the transfer since 1959 from the Historisch Museum Den Briel (formerly Trompmuseum) of 239 objects collected by the aforementioned D.C.A. Bout on long-term loan.25 Bout was indeed

23 Inventory numbers WM-29374 to WM29378 and WM-29384.

24 Inventory numbers WM-29379 to WM-29383. 25 Inventory numbers WM-51004 to WM-51257.

born in Den Briel and in 1914 had shipped objects to his hometown museum from his mission post in New Guinea. In 1958, the Trompmuseum, together with Bout, agreed that the objects would be better appreciated and cared for in the WMR, leading to their transfer, and therefore joining the repository of the rest of the UZV collection.

Finally, and although this is beyond the scope of this article, other collections related to the UZV collecting activities are today also kept in the Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam and Leiden, as well as in museums worldwide, testifying even further to the broad influence UZV missionaries had on the constitution of collections from western New Guinea for Dutch museums but also foreign institutions.

Conclusion: UZV missionaries as essential collectors in New Guinea

Beyond the collection that was transferred from the UZV museum in Utrecht to the WMR, a number of series of items, part of the Rotterdam collection, have been identified as being related to the UZV, whether because they were collected by UZV missionaries while converting people in the field, or because they acted as main intermediaries for other collectors who travelled to New Guinea. Although sometimes listed

in the museum database, the names of these collectors were not always linked to the UZV, and their role as missionaries was most of the time silenced. Cross-referencing sources, not only museum documentation and archival documents related to the UZV but also other sources from the same time period, appear here to be the key to first identify these missionary-related collections to better document them in turn. Paying closer attention to more indirect sources like expedition reports and travel accounts from western New Guinea has been surprisingly promising in that respect. It is hoped that this first overview will help improve the understanding of the pervasive role of UZV missionaries as colonial collectors, who eventually gathered one of the largest (totalling no less than 945 items), most diverse and earliest collection of items from the northern coast of western New Guinea.

The objects collected by UZV missionaries have followed various itineraries from many locations in Papua to the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam. Their creation, acquisition and transfer between several institutions testify to complex and oftentimes unbalanced encounters. These objects embody several layers of values, which regularly overlap and sometimes contradict each other, from tokens of conversion to ethnographic artefacts, testimonies of colonial endeavours and Papuan heritage.

Their acquisition often resulted from different (sometimes concomitant) agendas, from evangelisation work and colonial domination to scientific documentation, Papuan agencies as well as museum collection expansion. In this respect, UZV missionaries were central nodes in colonial networks, thanks to their monopoly position based on their knowledge, language skills and relations in the region. They became crucial intermediary actors for museums, scientific institutions and military campaigns. Also, although the artefacts now held in the WMR were acquired by missionaries in the context of their evangelisation work, they were not always collected as trophies of conversion to Christianity of Papuan people, requiring a more nuanced analysis of their conversion into missionary and/or museum objects. This ongoing translation also needs to take into account the current meanings and relevance of such collections: what do these objects mean today to various stakeholders in the Netherlands and in Papua? It is hoped that this first overview can help to reconnect histories and to foreground new relations with these collections.

Amélie Roussillon completed her PhD in 2021 at the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania & the Americas (University of East Anglia, Norwich), focusing on museum collections from the Abelam region of Papua

New Guinea. From 2022 to 2024, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University working as part of the project Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums, focusing on the collecting activities of Dutch Protestant missionaries in western New Guinea and the collections they gathered, now held at the Wereldmuseum. She currently works at the International Council on Monuments and Sites as a World Heritage Evaluation Specialist.

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In between movements and meanings: Nkisi Mabiala Mandembe’s trajectory into the

Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

Daantje van de Linde

Introduction

On 22 December 1893, the Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde received a letter from Sierk Coolsma, director of the Nederlandse Zendingsvereeniging (NZV, the Dutch Missionary Association). He offered several minkisi (sing. nkisi; also known as power figures) from Central Africa to the museum, which they in turn happily accepted (Stadsarchief Rotterdam 563.11). On 16 March 1894, Coolsma received a letter from the mayor of Rotterdam in which he was thanked for the NZV’s contribution to the museum (Het Utrechts Archief 1102-1.1688). The objects in question were registered into the collection with inventory numbers WM-4795, -4796, -4797 and -4798.

A month earlier, on 6 November 1893, the NZV had published their yearly gazette including an article about the four minkisi (Nederlandse Zendingsvereeniging 1893). A copy was attached to Coolsma’s letter to the museum, to provide the museum’s director A.W. Buning with more information about the objects. From a Christian, missionary perspective, the article described how minkisi were used and how these objects illustrated the ‘need’ to ‘religiously educate’ African peoples. The article was concluded with a detailed description of the large nkisi (WM-4795):

The Fetish, of which we show the image here, is called MabialaMandemba. The piece is a roughly chiselled block of wood, 0.71 m. high, and comes from Loango (SouthWestern coast of Africa). The Loango Negroes held this fetish in such high esteem that they transported it in a hammock and steadfastly refused, even for a huge fee, to hand it over to Europeans. It was later taken as booty by French soldiers, who in turn gave it to a traveller. This person sold

Figure 1. Nkisi Mabiala Mandembe (WM4795) as displayed in the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, in the exhibition Kruispunt Rotterdam. Photo: Daantje van de Linde, 12 March 2024.

it to our Rotterdam friend, who then let us have a look at it (Nederlandse Zendingsvereeniging 1893: 7).1

While the NZV gazette, and this paragraph specifically, can be seen as attempting to show the relationship between minkisi and their makers and users, it also serves as a starting point in tracing back the nkisi’s trajectory into the museum. In this article, I will show how the nkisi became subject to French military activity in Central Africa; to collection practices of agents working for a Dutch trading company who stood in contact with the NZV; to Dutch missionary thought and practice concerning religious education in the colonies; and eventually to museum practices at a Rotterdam-based institute.

Taking this as the vantage point, my aim is to further identify the actors who have been involved with the nkisi, as well as the ways in which their different engagements with

1 Translated from ‘De Fetisj, waarvan we hier de afbeelding geven, heet Mabiala-Mandemba. Het beeld is een ruw gebeiteld houtsblok van 0.71 M. hoog, en afkomstig van Loango (Zuid-Westkust van Afrika). Deze Fetisj stond bij de Loango Negers in zoo hoog aanzien, dat hij nooit anders dan in een hangmat werd vervoerd, en zij weigerden hardnekkig hem, zelfs tegen hooge betaling, aan Europeanen af te staan. Later werd hij door Fransche soldaten buit gemaakt, die hem afstonden aan eenen reiziger. Deze verkocht het beeld aan een onzer Rotterdamsche vrienden, die het ons ter bezichtiging toezond’.

the object served each actor’s own end. Seeking the provenance of this particular object then, on the one hand, lays bare how these different actions altogether resulted in the collecting and subsequent distribution and presentation of the nkisi. On the other hand, it illustrates the ways in which bringing together these interactions allows for a deconstruction of the complex layers that made up the framework within which European colonialism of the 19th and 20th centuries operated.

Nkisi nkondi Mabiala Mandembe

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was hardly an ethnographic museum in Europe without minkisi in their collection. Minkisi were collected in Central Africa, especially on the Loango coast but also more inland in, for example, the Mayombe region (fig. 2). Oftentimes, descriptions of the objects – in both museum practices as well as in academia – centered around function and appearance. Minkisi were generally considered to maintain order and keep up the laws of society amongst the Bakongo. There are many types of minkisi, of which the minkisi minkondi (sing. nkisi nkondi) are the most wellknown and can be recognised by the nails and blades hammered into their

bodies.2 Minkisi minkondi were used on various occasions: On a communal level, it was believed that the nkisi could function as mediator in solving disputes between two parties. They ratified and reinforced agreements, for example concerning trade or territorial rights. On an individual level, the nkisi could be called upon to punish people who had committed a crime.

The wooden figure would first be crafted by a maker. In this state, however, it was not considered a nkisi yet but rather a container. Subsequently, a nganga would become the owner of the object and was able to empower it into becoming a nkisi. This was done by adding bilongo, or ‘medicine’.3 Those seeking the nkisi’s

2 The distinctions made between types of minkisi are largely based on European classification systems. The three works most commonly referred to are Maes (1935), Dupré (1975) and MacGaffey (1991). Joseph Maes presented four types of minkisi, based on his study of the minkisi collection at the Museum of the Belgian Congo (today known as the Royal Museum for Central Africa). Marie-Claude Dupré and Wyatt MacGaffey largely derived their conclusions from the work of Swedish missionary Karl Edvard Laman. He lived amongst the Bakongo from 1891 to 1919, where he worked together with local Bakongo to document the Kikongo language and the Kongo culture, including the use of minkisi. A total of 68 known Kongo authors contributed to Laman’s publications.

3 In the past, the nganga and bilongo have been interpreted as ‘priest’ and ‘medicine’ respectively. However, there are no equivalents of these Kikongo words in European languages, meaning the translations might give a distorted picture of what they actually entailed.

Figure 2. A map showing part of Central Africa, including regions, places and people relevant to this article. Adapted from Cooksey et al. 2013.

help then turned to the nganga who could activate it, after receiving financial compensation. Such activation was achieved by hammering a nail into the figure, shaking or insulting it, or by blowing up gunpowder in close proximity.

Minkisi received much recognition amongst the Bakongo. In some cases, even to the extent where minkondi

were left in charge of the entire judicial system, especially in the late 19th century along the Loango coast. Several minkisi minkondi were assigned the title of chief and were subsequently carried in hammocks from one place to another (MacGaffey 1990: 59). These important minkisi were often given specific names, such as Mangaaka, Mabiala Mandembe, Mavungo or Kozo.4 Hein Vanhee’s research on minkisi in the Horniman Museum (London) collection points out there were almost forty minkisi minkondi known by a specific name in the Mayombe region alone (Vanhee 2000: 98). However, their authority was not infinite, nor divine. The container could deteriorate due to old age, the bilongo could fall off, or the related nganga could pass, in which case they needed to be replaced.

The nkisi currently in the Wereldmuseum collection was referred to as Mabiala-Mandemba by the NZV, in 1893. According to their yearly gazette, this nkisi came from the Loango region. It was supposedly carried around in a hammock, pointing to its importance amongst the Bakongo.

4 These names were given to specific types of minkisi. According to scholar Alisa LaGamma, ’Mangaaka‘ for example refers to ’the most powerful force imaginable’ (LaGamma 2008: 209) that could be attributed to a nkisi nkondi. The different names can each be considered a personification of forces and spirits from Kongo cosmologies (LaGamma 2015: 87).

Through the hands of strangers

Mabiala Mandembe’s path into the museum is not free of conflict. It has been subject to violence, hostility, and misunderstanding for more than a century. The following paragraphs shed light on the movement and interactions of the nkisi.

French soldiers in Central Africa

French colonial presence on the African continent dates back to the 17th century, primarily in the region of modern-day Senegal. This gradually expanded to, amongst others, Madagascar, Mauritius and La Réunion. It is in the 19th century, however, that French imperialism reached into other regions of Africa, primarily in North, West and Central Africa. Modern-day countries such as the Central African Republic, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo, were marked together as French Equatorial Africa, with Brazzaville as its capital. The geographical demarcations and the administration of these regions had their foundations in older territorial claims of France, initiated by Pierre Savorgan De Brazza.

During the 1870s, marine Pierre Savorgnan De Brazza (1852-1905) had launched a strategy through which the French could increasingly lay claim to trade and territorial rights. They would sign treaties with local rulers in

Central Africa, thereby transforming land into a French protectorate or suzerainty, which would later form the foundation of French colonial rule. This particular strategy proved effective, upon which the French government started to acknowledge its validity. Subsequently, other individuals were sent to parts of Africa to engage in similar tactics. In 1882, the French Ministry of the Marine had sent Robert Cordier to Congo as first lieutenant and commander of the naval gunboat called Sagittaire. Cordier had been instructed to expand French control along the Congo River estuaries. On 12 March 1883, Cordier signed such a treaty with Manimacosso-Chicusso, ruler of the Loango Kingdom.5 In 1909, a book by Edward Hertslet (librarian at the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs) called The Map of Africa by Treaty was published, providing a ‘list of treaties concluded by France with Native Chiefs in West Africa’ between 1819 and 1890 (Hertslet 1909: 634) – in which number 189.152 concerns the Loango Kingdom. The treaty itself can be found in the Archives Nationales D’Outre-Mer in Paris (Archives Nationales D’OutreMer 40 COL 479), clarifying that first and foremost, ‘the king of Loango

declares to place his country under the suzerainty and protectorate of France’.6 It was signed by Robert Cordier and Manimacosso-Chicusso, as well as the royal’s son Goma and several of his trustees (fig. 3).

The treaty does not provide any context to the circumstances in which it was established. However, a letter in the correspondence archive of Wereldmuseum Amsterdam provides more insight. On 26 June 1885, Johan A.A. Marcussen wrote a letter to the director of Natura Artis Magistra7, Gerrit F. Westerman. He offered 96 objects to the museum, which were carefully registered in a hand-written catalogue. Marcussen described object number 31, called M’Paambo8, as follows: ‘sign of dignity of Chicuse, king of Loango on the occasion of the war of the French in the year 1883 against that king, lost

6 Translated from ‘Le roi de Loango declare placer son pays sous la suzeraineté et le protectorat de la France’.

5 This specific spelling of the royal’s name is used in the 1883 treaty, possibly making it an interpretation of the French. The Musée Mâ Loango de Diosso in The Republic of Congo, for example, spells the name as Moe Makosso-Tchinkosso.

7 The Koninklijk Zoölogisch Genootschap Natura Artis Magistra was founded in 1838 by G.F. Westerman, J.J. Wijsmuller and J.W.H. Werlemann, in Amsterdam. In the first place, it was designed as a zoo. However, collecting ethnographic objects became part of their practices, resulting in an ethnographic museum within Artis. In 1926, that collection was transferred to the Koloniaal Instituut, the predecessor of the current Wereldmuseum Amsterdam.

8 This object is currently registered in the Wereldmuseum Leiden collection, with inventory number RV-2668-2212. Its inventory number within the NAM collection used to be 137-72 (Wijs 2005: 47).

by him’ (NL-HaNA 2.20.69/7851_10).9

Chicuse in this case refers to Manimacosso-Chicusso, meaning the French had forced him to sign the treaty using military means as manner of persuasion.

According to the missionary gazette of 1893, written by the NZV, the people of Loango had refused to sell Mabiala Mandembe, after which the nkisi was taken as booty by French soldiers. So

9 Translated from ‘waardigheidsteeken van Chicuse, koning van Loango bij gelegenheid van den oorlog der Franschen in het jaar 1883 tegen dien koning door hem verloren’.

Figure 3. Excerpt of the treaty signed between ManimacossoChicusso, the ruler of Loango, and Robert Cordier, acting on behalf of the French State, dated 12 March 1883 (Archives Nationales D’OutreMer 40 COL 479).

far, there are no known records of an exact moment in which the nkisi may have been taken. However, the treaty of 1883 exemplifies the context in which the action likely took place, namely one of increasing colonial and imperial expansion by the French.

Minkisi minkondi stood at the core of socio-political systems which European colonialism sought to disrupt and control. As Johannes Fabian wrote in his book Out of our minds, ‘when [they] realised that these superstitious practices were about power, they fell in with them. Anything relating to power concerned them. Magic unsettled their

own claims to superiority’ (Fabian 2000: 217). European involvement in trade relations, for example, thus meant an involvement in the use of minkisi as these objects ratified new agreements. Such involvement on the European side could be expressed in the destruction of minkisi, but also in an adaptation of their use (Vanhee & Vos 2013: 79). In his work on ethnographic collecting and African agency, Zachary Kingdon wrote that especially French and Portuguese colonial authorities were set to take away minkisi, although oftentimes they were unable to do so directly at a risk of conflict, because of the power minkisi held and the threat they thus posed (Kingdon 2019: 32). This removal of minkisi occurred at a large scale, especially between 1885 and 1910, following the formalisation of European colonialism (MacGaffey 2015: 151). I would like to argue here that taking away minkisi therefore, in part, signified the disruption of existing practices and systems in Central Africa. The collecting of nkisi Mabiala Mandembe is likely to be an example of this process.

An agent with the New African Trading Company

At some point, the soldiers who had taken the nkisi gave it to a traveller, whose identity remains unknown. It is likely to assume that this person was part of a larger caravan moving through parts of Central Africa, as people hardly ever travelled alone. As Fabian wrote,

‘travelling was an operation: personnel, supplies, and equipment had to be recruited, acquired, and put to work’ (Fabian 2000: 23). The nkisi may have been in ownership of one individual, but we can assume that this person did not act and move solely by themselves.

According to the NZV, this traveller had in turn sold the nkisi to a ‘Rotterdam friend’, referring to Johannis Besselaar, born on 8 July 1836 in Rotterdam (Stadsarchief Rotterdam 999-01.1836B). The circumstances under which this transfer took place remain unclear. Information on Besselaar, however, is better preserved. We know that he practiced several professions throughout his life, as the records in the Rotterdam city archives indicate. He started out as an office worker and rose to the positions of bureau chief and proxy holder (Stadsarchief Rotterdam 494-03.851-032). While these records do not mention his employer, Besselaar was an acquaintance to the Wereldmuseum Leiden. The museum’s correspondence archives contain a letter dated 25 May 1903, in which Besselaar introduced himself as an employee with the New African Trading Company (NAHV, Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handels-Vennootschap) (Wereldmuseum Leiden, NL-LdnRMV-A1-41-30). In his writing, he expressed that he had been working for them for almost forty years, meaning his career with the NAHV most likely started out as an office worker.

The NAHV was a trading company with its headquarters based in Rotterdam. They were active between 1880 and 1982 and focused their trade on products such as ivory or rubber from Central Africa, where they established several trading posts (factorijen).10 Employed by the NAHV, agents were sent to the region to manage these posts. During their stay, however, many agents collected objects which subsequently ended up in the collections of European museums. While some agents initially collected objects for private reasons, others were in close contact with museums and collected on their behalf. Anton Greshoff is the most well-known example of the latter. He, in turn, managed to persuade agents to donate their collections as well. As presented by Sonja Wijs in her research on collection practices of NAHV agents in Central Africa, museums even went as far as sending wish lists (Wijs 2005: 56–59). This boosted the international trade in ethnographic objects, touched by a certain level of competition amongst European museums seeking to gather a high-quality collection. There is no evidence Besselaar ever travelled to Africa himself. Instead, he probably worked for the NAHV as bureau chief based in Rotterdam,

10 Hendrik Muller Szn. founded the NAHV as a reorganisation of the previous Afrikaansche Handelsvereeniging (AHV, African Trading Association), which had gone bankrupt in 1879.

which could mean he acquired the nkisi through this bigger NAHV network of collecting – although it remains guessing as to why Besselaar was interested in buying the nkisi. Regardless of his motivation, he only briefly held on to it as in 1893 he had already donated the nkisi to the NZV.

The Dutch Missionary Association

In 1858, the Nederlandse Zendingsvereeniging was established in Rotterdam resulting from a split with the Nederlandsch Zendeling Genootschap (NZG, Dutch Missionary Society) (Het Utrechts Archief 1102-1). They conformed to the Reformed Protestant thought and aimed to act in concordance with the Réveil movement from the Swiss Reformed Church. As laid out in their articles of association, one of their ambitions was to convert people in the colonies (Het Utrechts Archief 1102-1.1735). NZV missionaries were primarily stationed on Java (Indonesia).

There are no known records of any missionaries who travelled to Africa. Nonetheless, the NZV contributed significantly to the creation of a particular narrative concerning the Bakongo and minkisi, by relating the objects to fetishism. Within a context of increasing colonialism, fetishism became associated with development and evolutionary theories, in relation to religious practices. The term became almost synonymous to adjectives

such as primitive, savage or backward and ‘stood, in the European mind, for a sort of irrational anti-religion’ (MacGaffey 2013: 172). Fetish objects, like minkisi, were considered proof of the superstition they perceived in the African mind (Fabian 2000: 216).

In light of this, minkisi became increasingly subject to intensive collection practices, upon which they were taken to Europe. As a result, minkisi like Mabiala Mandembe were turned into a material representation of the ‘backwardness’ Europeans believed to be prevalent in Africa. Putting these objects on display in ethnographic museums allowed for the presentation of a colonial, Christian discourse, serving as a justification for the ongoing colonial expansion. The production of such narratives became systematised, which is visible when looking at the relation between the NZV and Mabiala Mandembe: their yearly gazette from 1893 was introduced by an eight-page article about an object from a continent where NZV missionaries were not even active.

Turning into a museum object

The NZV did not keep the nkisi for long, as they offered it as a loan (and later as a gift) to the Museum voor Landen Volkenkunde in December 1893. Coolsma informed the director they lacked space to properly keep the

object. However, he considered it of value to the museum in ‘studying the land and people of Africa’ (Stadsarchief Rotterdam 563.11).

1890s into early 20th century

During the course of 140 years, we can point out an ongoing – albeit evolving –framing by the museum of the nkisi . During the first decades following its acquisition, the museum sustained the narrative of minkisi as ‘fetish objects’ –while simultaneously turning Mabiala Mandembe into one of its top pieces. The 1894 yearbook explicitly described the object as a ‘highly remarkable and typical fetish object’ (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-5.1). In relation to other minkisi in the collection, this particular one has been referred to as one of the biggest and most important ones (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-4.13). Here, we can clearly see a continuation of the missionary’s perspective. Through a constant framing of the object – as well as all other minkisi in the collection – as fetish, the stereotype of African people as practitioners of fetish beliefs and cultures became reinforced and reproduced.

1979 till late 1990s

Unfortunately, there are no known images or exhibition texts about the nkisi prior to 1979. By then, Mabiala Mandembe had been turned into ‘a power figure or nail figure

from the Loango region’, featuring in two catalogues (Beumers 1987; Jansen & Janzen 1988) highlighting the collection’s ‘masterpieces’. The description of the nkisi remains limited to its appearance, although interestingly it is mentioned how minkisi were previously considered ugly and primitive in nature by ‘the West’, whereas now they have become valued for their powerful presence (Beumers 1987: 30–31).

Around the same time, several condition and restoration reports of the nkisi were drafted, including photos, drawings and handwritten notes (figure 4). While the term as such is not used by the museum, these reports can serve as evidence of keeping the nkisi as ‘authentic’ as possible. They made a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nails: the ‘good’ nails were considered original ones, whereas the ‘bad’ nails may have come from other objects and were to be removed (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-6.1.4). Another report mentioned how they came across the image of Mabiala Mandembe published in the NZV gazette of 1893. This was followed by attempts to make the nkisi as identical to the image as possible, using it as a reference in restoration attempts (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-6.1.4).

During the 1990s, the museum shifted its perspective regarding collecting policies and strategies, emphasizing the importance of

contemporary art. This led to a donation of more than fifty objects collected by Piet and Ida Sanders, igniting a desire at the museum to present its Africa collection within this new framework. The result was an exhibition at the Kunsthal Rotterdam in 1996, called Collection Africa. In the exhibition catalogue titled Africa Meets Africa, Erna Beumers argued that, in the past, too little attention had been devoted to the objects’ lives prior to their arrival at museum: ‘the tangibility of the pieces often makes it hard for the viewer to enter into the much more impalpable worlds to which they implicitly refer – the world of a certain culture in which they have had their own place and meaning, and which makes up their raison d’être, as well as the world they have gone through on their way to the museum, without which one cannot explain that the objects are here’ (Beumers 1996: 13). The description of Mabiala Mandembe is identical to the one from a decade earlier, in one of the catalogues (Beumers 1996: 122). However, it is presented within a narrative that is substantially different in terms of its presentation of the Africa collection, and the nkisi is put in relation with both the people it was created by as well as those who interacted with it after it had been collected.

Figure 4. A drawing of nkisi Mabiala Mandembe (inv.nr. WM-4795), including handwritten notes concerning the condition of the object. Part of a condition report from 1988 (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-6.1.4).

21st century

Arriving at the 21st century, the nkisi has featured continuously in the Wereldmuseum’s permanent exhibitions. Additionally, in 2016, a temporary exhibition called AFRIKA 010 was organised, displaying the entanglements of African cultures with the city of Rotterdam. Alongside the exhibition, a magazine was published featuring Mabiala Mandembe in the form of a cartoon. It tells the story of the object being

collected and subsequently being appreciated by museum visitors, clearly visualizing the act of looting the nkisi in the 19th century – without questioning these actions in any way (Christern & Swaep 2017: 138–139). The text avoids using colonial discourse as produced by the NZV or the NAHV but nonetheless does not question their actions as such. It also emphasises the fact that already in 2016 the museum must have been aware of the looting.

In its current display, however, the nkisi is approached from a different

perspective. In the exhibition Kruispunt Rotterdam, Mabiala Mandembe is standing in the room called Representation/Shaping perceptions (fig. 1). While the specific object label primarily goes into function again, the room at large brings in the perception Congolese people had of Europeans, rather than emphasizing colonial stereotypes about and prejudices against Africa (‘Kruispunt Rotterdam’ 2018). In that sense, the object label may remain similar to older ones, but the context in which the nkisi is presented is fundamentally different. Consequently, considering Beumer’s text in Africa meets Africa as well, there is a visible trend of the Wereldmuseum changing its narrative about the African continent through its collection, identifying colonial discourses and practices and actively challenging these by moving away from Eurocentric perspectives – a stark contrast with the AFRIKA 010 cartoon.

Conclusion

In this article, I have tried to identify the actors who have been involved with nkisi Mabiala Mandembe during the course of some 150 years. Taken from the Loango people by French soldiers, it subsequently passed through the hands of an anonymous traveller; NAHV employee Johannis Besselaar; the NZV missionaries with Sierk Coolsma as its director; and eventually the

Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. Building on each of these interactions, we can point to a continuous framing of the object in which the nkisi must always exist in relation to something else. To the soldiers, for example, it became a means to affect power structures and existing systems of law and politics; whereas to the missionaries, the nkisi was an embodiment of ‘fetish beliefs’ they sought to dismantle. Subsequently, at the museum these narratives were sustained and evolved, turning the nkisi from a fetish into a power figure, or into a collection masterpiece which needed to be kept ‘authentic’. More recently, Mabiala Mandembe has been viewed at in substantially different contexts with more room for its colonial trauma and existence prior to the moment of collecting.

Using provenance research, I have been able to create a relatively detailed reconstruction of the nkisi’s movements into the Wereldmuseum collection. Based on the available archival material, it can be said with certainty that the nkisi Mabiala Mandembe was forcefully taken away from the Loango people, abducted from the African context in which it existed. Abducted in the physical sense of the word, referring to the materiality of the object being put in foreign places across time. But also abducted in an intangible sense, where it became subject to a continuously changing interpretation of the nkisi as an object, through which

its function as mediator was rendered unimportant and eventually became invisible as a result. In this regard, provenance research has allowed for an understanding of these different layers of colonial interpretations and deployments, thus moving back to the core of the object’s being: a nkisi nkondi of the Loango people in Africa.

Provenance research into colonial collections carries the capacity to not only look into objects and the ways in which they found their way to European museum collections, but also to contribute to a better understanding of European colonialism at large by deconstructing the different nodes and their intersections that together made up the networks through which colonialism on the African continent was sustained. By identifying the actors who have been involved with the nkisi and disclosing the object’s movements during past decades, Mabiala Mandembe is able to contribute to narrating parts of that colonial history.

Daantje van de Linde is a cultural historian based in the Netherlands. She obtained MA degrees in African Studies at Leiden University and Museum Studies at the University of Amsterdam. In 2022, she conducted research in Namibia, into the importance of restitution of cultural heritage from Germany. Since 2023, she works as a provenance researcher at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam.

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World War II-Era provenance research at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

Karwin Cheung and Anna Koopstra

Introduction

World War II was a turning point for Rotterdam. A German bombardment on 14 May 1940 left heavy scars on the city, taking the lives of some 800 people and leaving around 80,000 homeless. The Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde (today: Wereldmuseum Rotterdam; hereafter: MLV) remained relatively unscathed, but the bombardment’s destruction came as close as one street away and damaged many of the building’s windows (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-5.6). Despite the ruptures of the bombardment and the occupation, the museum continued to add works to its collection by way of the booming Dutch art market. In this article we discuss the acquisition practices of the MLV during the WWII-era (most often defined as 1933-1948). During these years, the MLV was governed by three directors: Jan

Willem van Nouhuys (director from 1 November 1915 to 1 January 1935), Gottfried Wilhelm Locher (acting director from 1 January 1935 to 1 October 1937) and, for the largest part of the period under review here, Sjoerd Hofstra (acting director from 1 November 1937 to 1 October 1938; director from 1 October 1938 to 1 September 1949).

Research on WWII acquisitions of Dutch museums has been on the agenda since the 1998 Washington Principles were established. However, the focus has been on European works of art—paintings, drawings, sculptures, decorative arts, and Judaica. A first WWII survey of the Rotterdam municipal collections (including the Wereldmuseum) was carried out in 1998 (Bonke 1998). A 2009 call by the Museumvereniging for further research went mostly unanswered by the Wereldmuseum, as it stated it did not have any potentially problematic acquisitions that would qualify for publication or further investigation.1 It was not until 2018 that research laid bare several problematic acquisitions in the Wereldmuseum collection that had not been noticed in the previous surveys. This led to renewed scrutiny (Cheung 2018; Koopstra 2023), the results of which form the basis for what follows.

This article falls along two historical axes: first is what might be called a horizontal approach, in which we sketch a broad outline of the acquisitions the MLV made between 1933 and 1948. This not only serves to illustrate the quantity of the museum’s (problematic) wartime acquisitions, but also sheds light on the financial construction that enabled the museum to procure many of said acquisitions. The second part takes a vertical approach and delves into the acquisition, in 1943, of two sculptures from the Nederlandsch-Aziatische Handelmaatschappij (NetherlandsAsiatic Trading Company), a trading company in Jewish ownership. We trace not just their acquisition by the museum, but also how these sculptures might have been removed from their original religious context in China in the early 20th century, a period of foreign imperial encroachment in China, hereby showing not just how financial instruments were put into use by the museum for its wartime acquisitions, but also how histories of imperialism and nazi-loot might overlap in the provenance of one single object.

Acquisitions and finances: 1933-1948

1 https://www.musealeverwervingen. nl/nl/954/musea/w/wereldmuseum/ (accessed 3 April 2024).

From 1933 up to 1940, the majority of the MLV’s acquisitions were donations, mostly by individual donors. Less than 10% of the museum’s acquisitions were purchased. The majority of those

scarce purchases was bought from private individuals, rather than via the art market. As such, the museum still operated very much as it had in the first 50 years since its foundation. This situation was not in the least due to the fact that almost no budget was available for purchases. Shortly before war broke out, this changed considerably. It is a well-known fact that during the war the art market boomed— as collectors were forced by circumstance and legal coercion to sell objects, while simultaneously German money flooded into the Dutch economy. Thus the occupation provided many an opportunity for (opportune) acquisitions (Aalders 1999: 85–86). Indeed, 1940 marks the entrance of the art trade as the museum’s most important source for acquisitions. By 1945-1948, 56% of the MLV’s acquisitions were purchases, in almost all instances made from dealers and via auction houses.

Our research has shown that from the objects the MLV purchased before, during and shortly after the German occupation of the Netherlands (97, 291, and 111 objects respectively; 499 objects in total), 73 acquisitions can be considered to have a problematic provenance history. They are listed in Appendix 1. The acquisition of several objects can be considered suspect due to a lack of administrative documentary evidence concerning their provenance (Cheung 2018: 35–36; Koopstra 2023: 42). Also

problematic are 13 objects that were bought from Jewish (art) dealerships which had been, or were about to be, confiscated by the German authorities and placed under new administration (Verwaltung) (Cheung 2018: 16–23; Koopstra 2023: 12–20, 23–40). Over the course of 1940 and 1941, the German authorities implemented a policy of Aryanisation of the economic sphere, which meant the eventual confiscation of all Jewish owned companies in the Netherlands (Aalders 1999: 135–140).

Between 1940 and 1945 the museum bought objects from three (formerly) Jewish-owned galleries in Amsterdam: Kunstzaal van Lier (in 1942), Kunstzalen A. Vecht (in 1943), and Kunsthandel Mossel (in 1943). Before 1940, the MLV had already occasionally worked with Carel van Lier (whose business was founded in 1921 as Kunstzaal van Lier) and with Aäron Vecht from Kunstzalen A. Vecht, whose gallery was founded in 1906 and specialised in Asian art. Both Van Lier and Vecht were pioneering dealers in ethnographic objects in the Netherlands, together with Kunsthandel Aalderink (founded 1929) and M.L.J. Lemaire’s Magazijn Marokko/Galerie Lemaire (founded in 1933), also based in Amsterdam. It is no surprise then that during and also after the war, these contacts continued.

Thus, while in theory it may seem straightforward to assess whether acquisitions done in this utterly

chaotic period are problematic or not, in practice transactions (as well as relationships) with professional art dealers can be complex. Nevertheless, the only thing that matters is if, at the time of the transaction, the dealer’s business had been placed under Verwaltung or not (Ekkart 2003).2 In the case of private individuals belonging to a persecuted group, each transaction during the occupation is considered involuntary.

On 22 June 1942, the MLV bought a Buddha head from Carel van Lier, just before his gallery was confiscated by the German authorities on 6 July 1942. In the 1998 survey by A.J. Bonke, this object was the only one that was noted as a possible suspect acquisition, and it was in fact investigated again in 2009, as part of the project ‘Museale verwervingen vanaf 1933’. Even if there is no indication that any heirs of van Lier were contacted at the time of this investigation, it concluded that the acquisition of the Buddha head – most likely bought in London sometime after 1938 – was not problematic, as it took place before the confiscation of van Lier’s business, 14 days later.3 Of

2 See ‘Instellingsbesluit Restitutiecommissie’ voor het beoordelingskader (3.2.2): https:// wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0045060/2023-0124/0#Bijlage (last accessed 3 December 2024).

3 Another Jewish art dealer, Jacob Immerglück (1895-1943), who fled from Hamburg to Amsterdam in 1937, sold at least 2 objects to the MLV (in 1939) and also to the then Koloniaal Instituut (Koopstra 2023: 13–20).

course the impending threat hanging over van Lier’s livelihood (and life) must have been omnipresent. Just as crucial in this case is that the entry of the object in van Lier’s sales ledger (at the RKD) shows that it was sold in commission (for one ‘v.F.’, who as of yet remains unidentified), which means that the Buddha head was not van Lier’s personal possession, nor part of van Lier’s stock (Koopstra 2023: 32).4

In most instances however it will not be possible to confirm whether objects were part of one’s private possessions or belonged to the inventory of one’s business.

More clear-cut cases are those of the 8 objects the MLV bought in 1943 from Aäron Vecht (Kunstzalen A. Vecht) and the 2 objects bought in that same year from Kunsthandel Mossel, led by the brothers Elias, Meier and Simon Mossel, as these transactions were made when both galleries were under administration of a Verwalter

His one man’s business – possibly thanks to his contacts with the banker and collector Georg Tillmann – was put under Verwaltung in 1941 and was liquidated shortly after. The dealer, his wife, young daughter and mother were put on transport in 1943 and perished in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Sobibor.

4 In 2007 the heirs of van Lier submitted a request for the restitution of 7 objects held in the NK-collection. The committee advised positively for the return of only 1 of the objects, on the basis that it probably belonged to Van Lier’s private collection and not to the trade inventory of his gallery.

(officially: Verwaltungs-Treuhänder), administrators put in place by the Nazi’s to ‘govern’ Jewish-owned businesses. Recommendation 5 of the Committee Ekkart concerning works of art bought from Jewish art dealers during the war states that sales by Verwalters or other managers not appointed by the owner are considered to be involuntary (Ekkart 2003). Similarly, any transaction that took place during the German occupation with an individual who was Jewish is considered an involuntary, forced sale (Ekkart 2001). This applies to 2 objects in the collection that were bought, in 1943, from a private individual, Ms. Marianne Caroline Cohen (Cheung 2018: 24–25; Koopstra 2023: 11–12), the later Mrs. Kreykamp-Cohen, who resided in The Hague and died in 1990.5

Another example of problematic transactions are those that involved Sjoerd Hofstra, the MLV’s director, in his eagerness to acquire objects for the museum’s collection, dealing with two questionable individuals. In March of 1944, in total 33 objects were acquired (32 through purchase; 1 as a gift) from a couple dealing in works of art in the town of Bussum: Hiranmaya Ghosh (also known as Dr. Pranananda) and Rudolphine Auersperg (b. 1905-date of death unknown). Hofstra possibly became acquainted

with the two when the MLV temporarily relocated in July 1942 to the estate ‘Gooilust’ in nearby ‘s-Gravenland. The couple disappeared after the war and were soon considered by the Dutch state to be suspected war criminals and traders in stolen goods from Jewish people (Cheung 2018: 26–29). Although the files regarding their case at NIOD and the Nationaal Beheersinstituut/ National Archives show that considerable efforts were undertaken to trace their whereabouts, they were never found and brought to justice.

Notably, many of these acquisitions were paid for with external, private funds. One party specifically contributed substantial amounts of money for acquisitions: the Administratiefonds, an important and influential Rotterdam-based private charitable organisation.

The Administratiefonds was (and is) part of the investment fund Stichting Bevordering van Volkskracht (short: Volkskracht). It was founded in 1923 by W.S. (Willem) Burger (1853-1933) – who owed his affluence to the Rotterdam harbour. The Administratiefonds’s first secretary, notary Mr. H.J. Lambert (1853-1943), was a cousin of W.S.

5 The Wereldmuseum is currently in the process of tracking down possible heirs.

Burger. Lambert’s son Mr. G.H. Lambert (1888-1973), also a notary, took over his father’s office as well as his position as secretary of the Administratiefonds. The younger Lambert appears to have been on close terms with MLV director Hofstra, as the Administratiefonds

supported many of the museum’s acquisitions during the German occupation in order to safeguard Dutch collections and ‘prevent their export to Germany’ (Kok 1973: 201).

The acquisitions supported by the Administratiefonds have in common that they initially entered the MLV collection as loans. Formal transfer of ownership to the museum only took place in 1950.

In the years that the Administratiefonds actively aided the MLV financially with their acquisitions, the director of Volkskracht was the Rotterdam banker Karel Paul van der Mandele (1880-1975), one of the most influential financial figures in Rotterdam, who would come to be much admired for his role in the post-war reconstruction of the city.6

Van der Mandele was closely involved with the founding of the Nederlandsche Handels-Hoogeschool (today the Erasmus University), as well as the Africa Studies Centre of Leiden University. In 1947, MLV director Hofstra would take up an endowed chair as professor at the Leiden Africa Studies Centre.

Two sculptures from the Nederlandsch-Aziatische Handelmaatschappij (1943)

How director Hofstra made use of the possibilities in the wartime art market is illustrated by his 1943 acquisition of two large Chinese statues (WM-29252 and WM-29253; figs. 1 and 2) from the Nederlandsch-Aziatische Handelmaatschappij (hereafter: NAH).7 The sculptures are today considered two of the top pieces in the museum’s collection (Bruijn 2011: 32–33; Poveé 2000: 1, 38–39).

The first is a Chinese wooden sculpture of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Chinese: Guanyin) seated on a lion (fig. 1). In the cosmology of Chinese Buddhism bodhisattvas are beings on the path to Buddhahood. Bodhisattvas are often depicted wearing princely robes and jewellery, a reference to the Gautama Buddha’s worldly life as a prince before leaving the palace. The crown with a small, seated figure of the Amitabha

6 Recent publications have questioned Van der Mandele’s far-reaching pragmatism in working together with the German authorities during the occupation (Leeman 2023).

7 There are 14 objects associated with the Nederlandsch-Aziatische Handelmaatschappij in the NK-collectie (‘Netherlands Art Property Collection’; the collection contains art objects that were retrieved from Germany by the Allied forces after WWII and subsequently came under guardianship of the Dutch State that may have been looted, confiscated or forcibly sold between 1933 and 1945). These are: NK148, NK526, NK533, NK928-A1-2, NK928-B1-2, NK509, NK507, NK529, NK402, NK400, NK506, NK528, NK534 and NK531.

Figure 1. Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin) seated on a lion, 15th or 16th century, wood and traces of polychromy. 145 × 105 cm. China. Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, WM-29252.

Buddha is another identifying feature of Avalokiteshvara (Leidy & Strahan 2010: 156). This example likely dates from the latter half of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).

The second statue is an image of Avalokiteshvara as well, but executed in gilt bronze (fig. 2). Furthermore, in this case the deity is depicted in

his eleven-faced form. This particular manifestation of Avalokiteshvara with multiple faces and arms symbolises the bodhisattva’s intent to help anyone in need – wherever they may be. The imposing figure stands 2.19 meters in height and weighs over 500 kilograms. Though the statue is Tibetan in

Figure 2. Elevenfaced Avalokiteshvara, 18th or 19th century, gilt bronze. China. 218 × 105 cm. Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, WM-29253.

style, it was likely made in China in the 18th century (Bruijn 2011: 32).

Several years before Hofstra acquired the two statues for the MLV, they had already been shown at the museum in the exhibition Tentoonstelling Chineesche en Tibetaansche Kunst, which was held from 18 December 1938 until 22 January 1939. The statues were two of the in total three objects that were lent by the Nederlandsch-Aziatische Handelmaatschappij (Krieger & Friedman 1938: cat.no. 167, 205).8

The NAH was a trading company with offices in Amsterdam and Kobe. The company was created in 1920 from a merger between ‘Import Maatschappij Tokio’ in Amsterdam and ‘B. Ornstein & Co.’ in Kobe. The Amsterdam office, located on the Kloveniersburgwal 23, was led by two directors, the Jewish brothers Jakob (1885-1943) and Comprecht Sanders (1880-1927) (De Telegraaf 11 February 1920). A third brother, Herman Sanders (1882-1944), was a commissioner in the company (Japikse 1938: 1282). A fourth brother, Salomo Sanders (1889-1944), worked for the company as a salesman. The Sanders family, originally from the northernmost province of the

country, Groningen, were the largest shareholders of the company.9

The company’s activities appear to have been multifarious: they imported various merchandise such as porcelain from Japan but also represented Dutch airplane builders in Japan. The art trade was likely a side activity next to its main business of commodity trade and foreign representation of Dutch companies. In an advertisement in the June 1931 issue of the Burlington Magazine the company called itself ‘importers of old Chinese Art’, which sold ‘to the trade only’ (‘Netherlands Asiatic Trading Company’ 1931). Proof of the NAH’s activities on the art market is scarce and it seems that the company never achieved great success. The company eventually ceased to exist in 1972.

How the two Chinese statues under discussion here were removed from their religious context and came into the inventory of the NAH is not known. The existence of a Kobe office strongly suggests that the NAH acquired the statues on the Japanese art market. War and political conflict in early 20th century China had led

8 In the exhibition catalogue the wooden statue of Avalokiteshvara was misattributed as a statue of Manjushri dating to the Song period.

9 A stolperstein was placed to commemorate Salomo Sanders, his wife Betsie and two daughters at their last address in the city of Groningen; see for this and more about Salomo’s family, including his brothers https://www.stolpersteineschilderswijk groningen.nl/ slachtoffers-in-de-schilderswijk/ otto-eerelmanstraat/otto-eerelmanstraat-9a/ (last accessed 2 April 2024).

to a large-scale outflow of Chinese antiquities to Japan, from where they were often exported to Europe and the United States (Brady 2019: 47–88).

Japanese imperial encroachment in China had led to unfettered access for Japanese art dealers. Imperialism and art trade were closely intermingled in the Japanese art trade in this period (Cheung 2020: 23–34). As no archive exists of the NAH’s Kobe office, it is impossible to definitely state that the company acquired these two statues in Japan. It should be noted that Dutch art dealers also bought inventory locally in the Netherlands, either from other art dealers or individuals. The NAH did not operate as a typical art dealer however, lacking a storefront and apparently only selling to other businesses.

It is possible that the NAH had already been trying to sell the sculpture of the seated bodhisattva (WM-29252) for a number of years. In 1930 the NAH offered a sculpture with identical dimensions (145 cm in height) and iconography to the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, as evidenced by a letter from Jakob Sanders to Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874-1960), the founding director of the museum (Archive of Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities E1A-4_0489).

At the time of the 1938 Rotterdam exhibition, the NAH was still run by its Jewish owners. Shortly thereafter however, with the start of the German occupation and its policy

of Aryanisation, the Sanders family were gradually pushed out of the NAH. On 11 January 1941 a part of the stock held by the Sanders family, the largest shareholders of the NAH, was sold to the N.V. Import en Export Maatschappij P. Dobbe, in Alkmaar. The director of that company, Klaas Luijting, became a commissioner of the NAH, replacing Herman Sanders. Joseph Leeman became joint director, next to Jakob Sanders and Usaburo Yuasa (of the company’s Kobe office). On 19 November 1941 Jakob Sanders was given an honorable discharge from his position of director, and all remaining stock held by members of the Sanders family was sold to the company for 20% of the value (NIOD 177d.33).

It is unclear whether Hofstra, the museum’s director, was aware of the NAH’s precarious situation. In 1942 Hofstra had been in touch with the NAH in order to buy these two statues, but this apparently fell through because the German authorities were possibly interested in acquiring the statues for themselves. We know this from the first extant archival evidence concerning the two statues, a letter from the NAH to Hofstra, dated 17 December 1942, in which the company informs him that the German authorities were not interested after all, making them available again for the museum (Stadsarchief Rotterdam 17 December 1942: 563.90).

This letter was signed by the name of Jakob Sanders, showing that he was still working for the company in late 1942, despite having been removed as its director. After receiving the letter from the NAH, Hofstra immediately wrote a letter to the Administratiefonds, Hofstra’s proven method for financially aiding acquisitions in this period, to inform them of the possibility to acquire two important statues (Stadsarchief Rotterdam 19 December 1942: 618.730).10

On 9 January 1943, Hofstra sent a formal request for funds to the Administratiefonds to acquire these two statues ‘in order to save them for a Dutch and Rotterdam museum’ (Stadsarchief Rotterdam 9 January 1943: 618.730).

Two days later the acquisition was approved by the Administratiefonds in its internal communication (Stadsarchief Rotterdam 11 January 1943: 618.730). The museum acquired the two statues for the sum of ƒ 12.000 guilders, though, as per usual, the statues were initially registered as a loan from the Administratiefonds and the ownership was only transferred formally to the museum in 1950.

In the course of the same year that the statues once owned by the NAH came to Rotterdam, the Sanders

10 These were not the only objects of the 1938 exhibition that were acquired by the museum during the occupation period, with funding from the Administratiefonds. The museum also bought J.W. Bianchi Jr.’s collection of Tibetan art and A.F.C.A. van Heyst’s collection of Chinese Rhinoceros cups.

brothers and their families were deported from the Netherlands. Jakob Sanders, his wife Wilhelmina (1887-1943), and their son Hein (1921-1943) were murdered in Auschwitz on 27 August 1943. Herman Sanders, his wife Sara (1888-1944), and daughter Henny (1922-1944) were murdered in Auschwitz on 28 January 1944. Their daughter Ellen de Swarte-Sanders (1918-1943) was murdered, together with her husband Benjamin Ruben de Swarte (1914-1943), in Sobibor on 11 June 1943. Ellen and Benjamin’s daughter, Carla van Dokkum (b. 1943), survived the war. The fate of Ellen’s twin sister Vera is unknown. Salomo Sanders, his wife Betsie (1893-1944), and daughter Helena (1929-1944) were murdered in Auschwitz on 7 July 1944. Their daughter Frouwke (1926-1945) died at an unknown location on 28 February 1945. Comprecht Sanders had passed away in 1927. Comprecht’s widow Evaline Bertha Sanders-Spanjaard (1886-1970) survived the war and passed away on 16 January 1970. Their son Karel (1917-1941) passed away in an accident in the United States. The fate of their daughter Frieda Cohen-Sanders is unknown. Frieda’s husband Emile Cohen (1911-1942) was murdered in Auschwitz on 12 December 1942.11

11 https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/ page/196764/jakob-sanders (last accessed 2 April 2024).

Conclusion

Our research has brought to light a variety of issues associated with Jewish ownership (company/art dealership), as well as with private individuals owing non-Western objects—objects that can all be considered to share a problematic ownership history during the WWII period. So far, in the Netherlands debates surrounding the provenance of ethnographic collections and of Nazi-looted art have largely taken place on parallel tracks.12 Specific ideas or underlying assumptions about ethnographic objects contributed to this: in response to the Museumvereniging’s call for WWII-era provenance research, the Wereldmuseum stated that it deemed a large part of its collection to consist of objects that were not recognisable on an individual basis. The concept of individual recognisability (‘herkenningswaarde’) – the lack thereof – for ethnographic objects has featured in all Dutch policy papers concerning restitution, including the latest report by the Kohnstamm Committee for the Evaluation of the Restitution Policy for Cultural Heritage Objects from the Second World War (Commissie evaluatie

restitutiebeleid cultuurgoederen Tweede Wereldoorlog 2020).13 There certainly are artefacts for which this criterium is legitimate and it applies not only to ethnographic objects but also to object categories such as prints, or other items made for daily use that were produced serially. In many cases, it is however perfectly possible to retrace their histories on the basis of close, first-hand inspection of the object’s specific characteristics, rather than on the basis of photographs with descriptions in a collection database. Lastly, whether an object can be recognised as unique, often depends on the observer in question.

Our research has also drawn attention to the role of the private Administratiefonds, which supported many of the problematic acquisitions made during this period. While the goals of the museum’s director and that of those governing the Administratiefonds may have been similarly idealistic—as benefiting the enhancement of the city, its cultural institutions and its inhabitants—their opportunism in times of hardship for especially Jewish companies and private persons can and should not be left without critical appraisal.

12 Within the wider scholarly community there has been some attention for examples in which these two issues intersect, see for example von Gliszczynski & Friedel 2018.

13 Since it was founded in 2001, the Restitution Committee, which advises on works of art by the Dutch State or in other collections in the Netherlands, has only assessed a handful of restitution applications that concern ethnographic objects.

Karwin Cheung is a senior provenance researcher in the research project

Pressing Matter at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Previously he worked as an assistant curator of the East Asian collections at the National Museum of Scotland and the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen.

Anna Koopstra worked as a WWII provenance researcher at Wereldmuseum Rotterdam in 2022-2023. She is curator of early Netherlandish painting at Musea Brugge.

Bibliography

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Archive of Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm. 20 September 1930. E1A4_0489. Letter from Jakob Sanders to J.G. Andersson. Retrieved from: https:// collections.smvk.se/carlotta-om/web/ object/517194 (accessed 3 April 2024).

Bonke, A.J. 1998. De herkomst van de aanwinsten van de Rotterdamse Gemeentemusea 1940-1948. Rotterdam: Gemeente Rotterdam.

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Commissie evaluatie restitutiebeleid cultuurgoederen Tweede Wereldoorlog. 2020. Streven naar rechtvaardigheid. De Telegraaf. 11 February 1920. NederlandsAziatische Handelmaatschappij

Ekkart, Rudi E.O. 2001. Herkomst Gezocht. Aanbevelingen Commissie Ekkart. www.herkomstgezocht.nl, www. originsunknown.org.

Ekkart, Rudi E.O. 2003. Aanbevelingen restitutie kunstwerken van kunsthandelaren. www.herkomstgezocht.nl, www. originsunknown.org.

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Japikse, N. 1938. Persoonlijkheden in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in woord en beeld. Amsterdam: Van Holkema en Warendorf.

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Krieger, C.C. & Friedman, D. 1938. Tentoonstelling Chineesche en Tibetaanse Kunst. Rotterdam: Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde.

Leeman, Merel. 2023. De Keien: Rotterdams studenten tussen handel en verzet (19401945). Amsterdam: Atlas Contact.

Leidy, Denise Patry & Donna Strahan. 2010. Wisdom embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

‘Netherlands Asiatic Trading Company’ 1931. The Burlington Magazine 58 (339): x (front matter).

Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD). 1941. 177d

Niederländische Aktiengesellschaft für Abwicklung von Unternehmungen (NAGU). ‘33 Balansen en rapporten opgesteld door Treuhänder, 1941-1944 - NederlandsAziatische Handelsmaatschappij te Amsterdam.’

Povée, Henk. 2000. De schatten van het Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. Rotterdam: Wereldmuseum Rotterdam.

Stadsarchief Rotterdam. 19 December 1942.

618 Archief van de Stichting Bevordering van Volkskracht te Rotterdam en andere daarmee verband houdende stichtingen. ‘730 Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde.’ Letter from Sjoerd Hofstra to G.H. Lambert.

Stadsarchief Rotterdam. 9 January 1943.

618 Archief van de Stichting Bevordering van Volkskracht te Rotterdam en andere daarmee verband houdende stichtingen. ‘730 Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde.’ Letter from Sjoerd Hofstra to G.H. Lambert.

Stadsarchief Rotterdam. 11 January 1943.

618 Archief van de Stichting Bevordering van Volkskracht te Rotterdam en andere daarmee verband houdende stichtingen. ‘730 Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde.’ Letter from G.H. Lambert to L.W.E. Rauwenhoff and K.P. van der Mandele.

Stadsarchief Rotterdam. 17 December 1947.

563 Archief van het Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde en Maritiem Museum Prins Hendrik te Rotterdam. ‘90 Ingekomen en minuten of doorslagen van uitgaande stukken met betrekking op het Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde.’ Letter from Jakob Sanders to S. Hofstra.

Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. 1940. Jaarverslag (Jaarverslagen Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde en Maritiem Museum Prins Hendrik, 1940-1951). NL-RtdWMR-5.6.

Appendix 1

Accession

WM-28870 Head of a Bodhisattva, stone

WM-28871 Stone sculpture of a bodhisattva

WM-28872 Head of Banaspati, wood.

WM-28999 Ceramic dish

WM-29000

WM-29001 Miniature painting of a sufi

WM-29003 Standing Buddha figure, gilt bronze

WM-29004 Wooden sculpture of Guanyin sitting on a lion

WM-29099 Stone carving of a head

WM-29100 Alms bowl

WM-29103

WM-29252 Wooden sculpture of Guanyin sitting on a lion

WM-29253 Bronze sculpture of standing Guanyin

WM-29257 Wooden sculpture of a Nagaraja

WM-29258 Wooden sculpture of a Nagaraja

WM-29259 Wooden sculpture of a Nagaraja

WM-29260 Wooden sculpture of a Nagaraja

WM-29261 Stoneware bowl

WM-29262 Stoneware bowl

WM-29263 Jade ‘bi’ disc

Aziatische Handelmaatschappij

NederlandschAziatische Handelmaatschappij

Kunstzalen A. Vecht

Kunstzalen A. Vecht

Kunstzalen A. Vecht

Kunstzalen A. Vecht

A. Vecht

from Jewish art dealer

Accession number Description

WM-29264 Painting of a hawk and a chicken

WM-29273 Burial vase

Geographical

China Kunstzalen A. Vecht 1943

Acquisition from Jewish art dealer

China Kunsthandel Mossel 1943 Acquisition from Jewish art dealer

WM-29274 Burial vase China Kunsthandel Mossel 1943 Acquisition from Jewish art dealer

WM-29372 Mortar Insular Southeast Asia

WM-29373 Pestle Insular Southeast Asia

M.C. Kreykamp-Cohen 1943

M.C. Kreykamp-Cohen 1943

Acquisition from Jewish individual

Acquisition from Jewish individual

WM-29671 Bronze vessel China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

WM-29672 Bronze incense burner China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

WM-29673 Bronze incense burner China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

WM-29674 Bronze sculpture of a bodhisattva

WM-29675 Bronze sculpture of a bodhisattva

WM-29676 Bronze sculpture of a bodhisattva

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

WM-29677 Bronze sculpture of a bodhisattva China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

WM-29678 Silk embroidered painting China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

WM-29679 Stone figurine of Laozi China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

WM-29680 Stone figurine of Guanyin

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

WM-29681 Lacquerware box Japan Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

WM-29682 Ivory miniature folding screen China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

WM-29683 Fragment of a painting on silk

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Accession number Description

WM-29684 Fragment of a painting on silk

WM-29685 Fragment of a painting on silk

WM-29686 Fragment of a painting on silk

WM-29687 Painting

WM-29690 Fragment of a fresco

WM-29691 Painting

WM-29692 Vase

WM-29693 Vase

WM-29694 Porcelain dish

WM-29695 Vase

WM-29696 Vase

WM-29697 Vase

Geographical

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Japan Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Japan Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

Japan Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

WM-29698 Miniature painting of Krishna South and Southeast Asia Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

WM-29699 Wooden figure of a bodhisattva

Japan Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944 Acquisition from suspected war criminal

WM-29700 Stone sculpture of Durga Insular Southeast Asia Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

WM-29701 Stone sculpture of Parvati

WM-29702 Ivory puzzle balls

Insular Southeast Asia Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

China Hiranmaya Ghosh 1944

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Acquisition from suspected war criminal

Accession

WM-29721

WM-29722

Life beyond the grave: Qutb al Aqtab

Rashid ed Din’s

steles at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

Karolien Nédée

Introduction

In 1968 a department of ‘Islamic Culture’ was set up within the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam (then Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde). As a result of this organisational change, the collections of the Asia and Africa departments were restructured and reassembled from which the new department was born headed by freshly appointed curator Fred Ros (Ros 1993). Gradually, the collection was supplemented with objects acquired during field trips to Morocco and Turkey, while others were purchased from art dealers, such as Saeed Motamed who sold more than 300 items to the Wereldmuseum between the 1950s and the early 2000s. The focus of the current

article is a pair of wooden grave steles (WM-63112-1 & 2), purchased in 1974 from this internationally active art dealer.

The presence of grave elements in museum collections summons attention, not only because it implies the art historical and archaeological disintegration of a grave or cemetery context, but also because such decomposition may have religious or spiritual consequences. In this case, the steles were known to come from the grave of a ‘Shi’i Saint’. In Shi’i eschatology, the cemetery is the main arena for the Day of Judgment and an immediate connection exists between burial conditions and eternal salvation (Amanat 2012). The implications stretch beyond the individual. Indeed, being buried in the immediate vicinity of a correctly buried Saint is of crucial importance to mere mortals as well. The anticipated guidance of a Saint during a resurrection scenario, in the past – until formal prohibition in 1928 – even led to the transportation of corpses to sacred sites adjacent to important shrines (Amanat 2012: 259). Therefore, in this article, I investigate why and how these steles ended up in a museum collection. How should we imagine their original context and to what extent have they been missed by local communities?

To answer these questions, I used different methodological approaches including object, archival and literature analysis. Additionally, I integrated

online records that have not been consulted before and illustrate the importance of local narratives and perspectives, accessible through these platforms. The first section introduces the objects and identifies the deceased, working from the textual carvings on one of the two steles. The second section traces his burial site, advancing several arguments to confirm the shrine’s location in Bidvaz, Iran. The third section examines the insides of the Bidvaz mausoleum—recognised as a national monument—alongside signs of devotion on the steles in the Wereldmuseum drawing comparisons between both, thus reinforcing the hypothesis that the steles came from this specific mausoleum. The fourth section considers why the museum acquired these objects despite their origins in a holy shrine, placing this within the broader context of 1970s acquisition practices. Finally, the last section explores how the steles were exhibited and why provenance research had not been undertaken until now.

Through this case study, I intend to reflect critically on past, yet relatively recent collecting practices by the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. Thereby, I want to illustrate the importance of provenance research for objects that have been acquired through art dealers or collectors and are therefore not ‘marked’, by explicit ties to colonial agents, military personnel, or missionaries. The absence of a

direct link to the colonial past does not exclude a colonial acquisition context nor does it eliminate other possibilities of continuing unequal power relationships or problematic collecting practices.

Qutb al Aqtab Rashid ed Din: what’s in a name?

Objects bought and sold on the art market are typically accompanied by very little documentation, therefore a closer analysis of the objects was needed to find provenance clues. The steles are inscribed with a poem that contains a name and a date of passing: ‘Qutb al Aqtab Shayk Rashid ed-Din, 877’. This date and name contain a lot of information. They are the starting point of my research. The year 877 can be recalculated from Hijri era (AH), calculated according to the Islamic lunar calendar to the year 1472 on the Gregorian calendar (CE). The name can be broken down into two parts: Qutb al Aqtab and Shayk Rashid ed-Din. ‘Qutb al-Aqtab’ is a rare title that indicates the highest level in the Sufi hierarchy of saints and requires more explanation.

‘Qutb’ is generally translated from Farsi into English as ‘Pole’, a designation used for the most perfected man possible, a person whose being and behaviour has achieved a level of perfection that manifests divine will and who holds the cosmic balance. ‘Qutb al Aqtab’ means Pole of Poles and

is given to a person who has reached the highest spiritual state possible. When one Qutb al-Aqtab passes, he is succeeded by the next. When conducting provenance research, this is valuable information, as this tradition results in precise and traceable lineages or golden chains (silsile) of which records are kept in written documents (silsile-nameh).

The second half of the name, Shayk Rashid ed Din, is shorthand for Rashid ed Din Mohammad Bidaavaazi, as researcher Johan ter Haar found out in 2013.1 Ter Haar recognised this saint as the twenty-second Pole of Poles in the chain of the Dhahabiyya order. Although the museum already had access to this information in 1974, as can be understood from the sales list,2 it was not until four decades later, that the person of Shayk Rashid ed Din provoked interest and research effort. The nisbah, a suffix to the name indicating a place of origin or ancestry, in this case ‘Bidaavaazi’, refers,

1 Ter Haar bases his conclusion on Gramlich (1965). This information was added to the internal database system of the Wereldmuseum (TMS) in 2017 by curator-atthe-time Mirjam Shatanawi.

2 Transcription of the name رشیدالـدّی قطب

on the sales list (18-5-1973) was done according to German spelling resulting in ‘Ghotbolaghtab Schaik Raschidedin’. Correspondence between Saeed Motamed and the museum happened in German, this article choses the spelling Qutb al Aqtab Shayk Rashid ed-Din.

according to Ter Haar’s suggestion, to Bidabad, a district in Isfahan County.

Ter Haar’s postulation on Shayk Rashid ed Din’s place in the silsile, can be complemented by Devin DeWeese’s (1988) article on the decline of the Kubraviyya order, one of the three major Sufi brotherhoods in Central Asia between the 12th and 14th centuries.

Figure 1. Front of WM63112-1, with carved poem and chronogram identifying Qutb al Aqtab Shayk Rashid ed Din and his year of death 877.

DeWeese positions Shayk Rashid ed Din as the principal disciple of Sayyid ‘Abdullah Barzishabadi. The latter, a Kubravi brother, fell out with the new leader of the order who, according to tradition declared: ‘dhahaba ‘Abdullah’ (“Abdullah has left” or interpreted by others as “Abdullah has become golden”). Outcasted, Barzishabadi

created a new order, by name of Dhahabiyya, turning these winged words into a badge of honour.

As Barzishabadi’s successor, Shayk Rashid ed Din continued this new branch of Sufism. He was active as a poet, authoring at least three known literary works, of which several manuscripts have survived until today. One example is a manuscript produced more than two centuries after his death in 1164 AH (1750- 1751 CE), the Masnaviyi Misbah (Couplets of the Light),3 which is kept at the John Rylands Library in Manchester.4 Another work, preserved in its original version is the Riyad al Afyadh, at the Nizam College Library in Hyderabad (DeWeese 1988: 66).

Location, location, location

Although Ter Haar proposes Bidabad, Isfahan County, as the burial location of Shayk Rashid ed Din, in this section, I argue that the previously mentioned nisbah ‘Bidaavaazi’ more likely indicates the village of Bidavaz or Bidvaz, near Meshed in North-Khorasan.

In western academic literature, the end of Shayk Rashid ed Din’s life, is unclear both in terms of place

3 Also known as the Misbah al-Rashidi, the Lamp of Rashid.

4 This copy, (Persian MS 285) can be consulted online. The Calcutta Asiatic Society also conserves this work under inventory number.602, Subhannullah Collection nr. 297.71/1,ff.9a,11a.

of burial and year of death. While DeWeese was unable to retrieve hagiographic sources on this Saint, he offers hypothetical answers to both question marks. For what concerns his year of passing, DeWeese argues that Shayk Rashid ed Din was still alive in 895 AH/1489-1490 CE because in that year, the letter of spiritual guidance was passed on to his successor. Unfortunately, this year does not correspond to the year indicated by a chronogram on the steles in the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. A chronogram is a letter inscription that forms a riddle and can be interpreted as numerals. In this case, it stands for the year 877AH/1472 CE and indicates the year of passing of Shayk Rashid ed Din. This year conflicts with the passing of the letter of spiritual guidance, eighteen years later.

However, for what concerns to the location of the burial place, DeWeese proposes two – potentially coexisting –possibilities: the cities of Khwarazm and Bidvaz.5 These hypotheses could be cross-referenced with online sources published by Iranian

5 DeWeese argues that the body, initially, could have been buried in Bidvaz, as it was Shayk Rashid ed Din’s last workplace, and later moved to Khwarazm. This scenario is based on similar events happening to the body of a martyr by the name of Majd al-Din Baghdadi who was killed in Khwarazm, buried in Nishapur and finally moved to Esfarayin, due to Uzbek and Safavid anti-Sufi raids in the early 16th century CE.

authors for students, tourists and heritage amateurs.

Shrine-specific research by Mohammad Mahdi Faqih Bahr al-’Uloom (2014), leads to a tomb located in the village of Bidvaz and gives a short biography of Shaykh Rashid al-Din.6 Striking on this scholar’s website dedicated specifically to shrine buildings, is a mourning poem, attributed to Shayk Shah Ali Esfariyini, son in law and successor of Shayk Rashid ed Din.

This poem corresponds to the (unauthored) text on WM-63112-1 in Rotterdam:

Aside from two verses that have become illegible on the wooden carvings, both texts are identical, as can be read in the above comparative columns. Bahr al-‘Uloom used separate (non-cited) sources when doing his research that provided him with the author of the text. Additionally, he cites the year of Shayk Rashid ed Din’s passing: 877AH/1472 CE, contradicting DeWeese’s hypothesis on a later death after 895 AH/1489-1490 CE, as explained above, and reconfirming the date hidden in the stele’s chronogram.

In sum the congruence of tourist and pilgrim information sourced on the

Is the demand of the heavens’ oppression, [that] the master turned this again into a lesson.

(…)

The Pole of Poles, Shaykh Rashid al-Din, Manifestation of the Truth’s light, a luminous being. He set out for the gardens of paradise suddenly, Departing at the command of the Eternal Living.

As he went from the transience to the permanence, The date of his journey was paradise eternal. May God sanctify his secret and cherish him, And may God’s mercy be upon him.

6 The author does not cite any sources, but may have consulted local shrine visitation guides, a genre that boomed during the Timurid period. Other primary sources include city histories, compendiums of religious sciences, biographies of Sufis, endowment deeds etc.

Figure 2. Back of WM63112-1 presenting the Shahada, the Islamic profession of Faith, and an incised hand on the lower part of the steles.

internet with the textual information on the grave stele itself, offers a strong basis for the provenance of WM-63112-1 & 2 present in the Wereldmuseum collection. The steles originally were part of the Rashid al Din Muhammad Bidvazi Mausoleum, in the village of Bidvaz, Esfarayan County, in North Khorassan, Iran.

A national monument in contemporary Iran

In 1998, the Rashid al Din Muhammad Bidvazi Mausoleum officially became Protected Monument #2192 on Iran’s National Heritage list. Although small and modest, the shrine is visited by tourists and pilgrims alike who provide

Figure 3. Screenshot of video content platform Aparat with a video uploaded by profile ‘Tourism’. The video shows both the inside and outside of the shrine monument in Bidvaz (‘Tomb of Rashid alDin Mohammad Bidawazi’).

considerable online content. Websites such as Google Maps, Wikipedia and the Iranian video sharing platform Aparat are helpful in offering insight into the architecture and features of a shrine building from a distance, especially in linking the steles to their original context.

The walls of the mausoleum feature plaster inscriptions that add to the genealogical background of Shayk Rashid ed Din cited above by DeWeese. The building, however, has been stripped of its original wooden interiors. The Timurid period is renowned among

art historians and collectors for its exceptional woodwork, by master (ustad) woodcarvers (najjar). At least forty such artists have been identified through signatures on their works, reflecting the individual recognition they received (Aube 2017). Much of this corpus is associated with religious structures, tomb towers for prominent religious figures in particular, though few buildings have survived intact. An attempted theft at this particular mausoleum, prevented by attentive neighbours, gave reason to move the cenotaph, unhinge the original wooden

doors and transfer them to Sardar Mofakham Mirror House Museum of Bojnord. Today, basic wooden doors and a stone plaque on the ground featuring the symbol of the Dhahabiyya order, welcome the visitor.

Another striking link between the interior of the shrine and the steles, are roughly incised hands on the plasterwork and WM63312-1 respectively. The symbol of the hand stands for a threefold love for (1) the struggle of martyr Huseyin whose hand was cut off (2) the skilfulness of the deceased and most importantly (3) the Prophet Muhammad and his Ahl-e Bait, the people of the cloak, also known as the five purified ones (Panj tan Paak), represented by the five fingers of the hand: Muhammed, Ali, Fatima, Hassan, Huseyin (Arslan 2008; Salikuddin 2018). The Timurid witnessed an increased importance of the ‘Ahl al Bayt’ and the hand symbolism, which can be explained by political reasons. Timurid rulers favoured religious scholars associated to the ahl al-Bayt to taxing privileges and land ownership, making it valuable for religious persons to establish and visualise their ties to the Ahl Bayt (Salikuddin 2018). The political and religious weight of the Ahl al-Bayt symbolism is still felt today, as the association of Shayk Rashid ed Din with the people of the cloak, is a quality of the shrine mentioned on websites enlisted below and pointed out in interviews.

Considerations in collecting for ‘the Islamic Cultural Region’ around the 1970s

The provenance research expanded on here, brings forward a link between the mausoleum in Bidvaz but not yet about how it left the shrine and came to the Netherlands. It is possible that these objects were in the hands of European collectors by the end of the 19th century and were separated from their context around that time. A lack of art market ‘pedigree’, which would increase its market value, however points towards a more recent decontextualisation, especially because several websites hint at attempted thefts. Was this possibility at all on the minds of the curators at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam at the time?

Some four years before the acquisition of the steles by Wereldmuseum, in 1970, the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, addressed the international movement of cultural property requiring member states to regulate the international art market and heritage protection on a national level. Although this legal instrument can be criticised, not in the least for the imbalance it installs between the enforcement duties imposed on exporting countries, versus those asked of importing countries, it did spotlight illegal traffic and create awareness on

the topic in the museum world. While Iran accepted the treaty in 1975, the Netherlands, only ratified it in 2009.

Newspaper clippings in the museum’s collection depot, however, show that the curatorial staff increasingly and actively took note of art trafficking issues from the late eighties onwards and attended conferences on the topic in the early nineties.

In 1973, however, the Wereldmuseum sought to elevate its Islamic collection and was less preoccupied by import standards. The steles were a perfect fit for this goal: Timurid woodwork is rare and highly valued, and when offering these panels to the museum, the dealer Motamed, added verbally that the steles came from a small mausoleum in Mazandaran,7 the forested northern provinces, typically associated with this type of artistry. With pieces like this, the museum could compare itself to museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Art dealers like Motamed could help facilitate acquisitions under ‘challenging’ circumstances. A 1975 acquisition proposal for the Islamic Cultural region, several months after the purchase of the steles, for instance explicitly advocates an active collaboration with Saeed Motamed.

This collaboration was to be favoured over collection trips to Iran because this dealer was better placed to circumvent local rules: ‘Collecting on locations is possible at times, but it requires a lot of preliminary research and involves overcoming the resistance of the population to cede Islam objects to unbelievers’ (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-4.68).

As such, this collaboration allowed the institution to avoid direct confrontations with local communities, thereby sidestepping potential cultural and ethical conflicts. The responsibility of engaging with these communities –who may have been unwilling to relinquish their cultural artifacts – was thus transferred to Motamed, the museum’s primary dealer in Islamic art. Additionally, it proved financially beneficial, as Motamed sold artefacts more cheaply than in ‘the home countries’ which, according to the suggestions of curator Fred Ros, ‘were becoming more expensive because as of this year, they were starting to build museums of their own’ (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-4.68)8 and the

7 Notes in the collection database of the Wereldmuseum (TMS).

8 Translated from: ‘Hoewel de Heer Motamed aan veel musea in Europa en de USA verkoopt, hebben zijn prijzen de huidige exorbitante prijsstijging voor deze voorwerpen slechts ten dele gevolgd (steekproefsgewijs getoetst). Over het algemeen kan gezegd worden dat dergelijke voorwerpen op het ogenblik in Europa goedkoper zijn dan in hun thuislanden, dit mede door het feit dat er in het Middenoosten het laatste jaar vele musea in opbouw zijn.’

museum was in a strong position to negotiate, or even pressure this dealer. Evidence of this strategy appears in the notes from a Rotterdam acquisition proposal meeting in March 1995, which include the phrase ‘onder druk zetten’ (‘put pressure’) (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, NL-RtdWMR-4.68), linked to pricing negotiations.

Despite awareness on international legislation and changing ethical values in the museum world, the ambition to build a prominent collection on illicit import and frequent heritage thefts in Central Asia, somewhat blind sighted the museum for what in hindsight is understood as a potentially problematic acquisition practice.

Exhibiting ‘Islamic art’ in an ethnographic museum until 2015

Taken away from their original context and integrated in the museum collection, the steles were stripped of their individuality. Despite the fact that they were sold in 1974 with the name and year of passing of the person whose grave they belonged to, they were not noticeably researched by the institution before 2017.9 Rather, they

9 Mirjam Shatanawi, curator from 2017 to 2018, was the first to contact several specialised researchers, a.o. Johan ter Haar and Asghar Seyed Gohrab who looked into the text and the genealogy of Shayk Rashid ed Din.

were made to serve a new purpose: illustrating Islamic Art in a general way. The steles were displayed in both the 1994 exhibition Dreaming of Paradise: Islamic Art from the collection of the Museum of Ethnology Rotterdam, and the 2015 Persians: warriors and poets. Both exhibition catalogues draw the reader’s attention to the traces of devotion left on the steles: ‘On the head stela it can still be seen where beseeching fingers have touched the tomb’ (Radtke 1993: 72). In order to enhance the experience of the museum visitor, a mausoleum-like setting was created, complete with a sarcophagus around the steles and strips of fabric tied to the bars of a surrounding fence to evoke a sense of a ‘busy atmosphere’ (Stadsarchief Amsterdam 31008.890). This focus on traces of devotion, rather than on the qualities of Timurid artistry or the poetic and intellectual traditions evoked by the poem on WM-63112-1, is unexpected. The subtitle of the exhibition evokes the idea of an art exhibition, which creates expectations about a focus on aesthetics and artistic traditions. The colourful marking of the beseeching fingers, however, rather calls to mind the realm of the ‘ethnographic’ and is reminiscent of a discourse known from the ‘ethnographic’ art market where insistence on patina and traces of usure are perceived as markers of ‘authenticity’ crucial to the – mostly white – connoisseur’s emotional

engagement with ‘ethnographic’ objects (Steiner 1994; Price 2002).

Similarly, their placement in Dreaming of Paradise (Stadsarchief Amsterdam 31008.890, 31008.1357) would have been subject to debate. The steles were situated in the subsection of ‘magic’ within the segment on customs and beliefs, dedicated to the topic of ‘cosmic powers that are not always in accordance with Islam [and] […] objects with non-Islamic influences, or with elements that are not integrated or respected by formal Islam’ (Stadsarchief Amsterdam 31008.890).

The contrast between ‘formal’ and ‘popular’ Islam is a 19th century division used by ethnographic museums in the Netherlands from the 1960s onwards (Shatanawi 2014: 20). It sets official, ‘pure’ Islamic faith as understood by urban, literate elites against popular Islamic superstition (Shatanawi 2014: 19–20). It is an attempt at avoiding defining everything from the ‘Islamic cultural region’ as Islamic while still approaching the region as a graspable whole. In 1973, Fred Ros, newly appointed curator of the Islamic Cultural Region described his job as follows: ‘The task accepted by the curator of the Islamic Cultural Region […] is to demarcate an area that allows Islam and its associated culture to be shown to the public comprehensively’ (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam 1973:

‘Verzoek’).10 The steles exemplified a broader concept of magical thinking, within a framework attempting to present an all-encompassing idea of Islam. In practice, however, this division between ‘formal’ and ‘popular’ Islam is very difficult to sustain (Shatanawi 2014).

The way the steles were exhibited in the past raises questions on two levels. On the one hand, the categorisation stripped the steles of their artistic, historical, and religious specificity in favour of a comprehensive narrative based on 19th century ‘western’ ideas on Islam. On the other hand, at a time when the museum is critically reflecting on its past, the openness in attracting the visitor’s attention to the devotional significance of these objects, until very recently, is striking. Especially because the practice of devotional touch remains common, and allows pilgrims to materially connect with the divine through the tomb of a holy figure, to seek grace (baraka), and to express devotion (Parsapajouh 2025). Today, displaying gravestones at the Wereldmuseum would likely spark debate.

10 Translated from: ‘De opdracht die hij bij zijn indiensttreding aanvaardde was […] een dusdanig gebied af te perken dat de Islam en de daarmede samenhangende kultuur aan het publiek getoond kon worden. (N. Afrika, Nabije Oosten t/m Pakistan)’.

Figure 4. Exhibition design plans showing the stele as an illustration on the category of ‘magic’ (Stadsarchief Amsterdam 31008.890).

Concluding notes

contextualisation and museal discourse around them.

In this article, I have examined the provenance of two gravestones in the collection of the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. This case study highlights the significance of collection research that allows for a better understanding of objects, resulting in a more precise

Indeed, for a significant period, these gravestones were used by the museum to illustrate the so-called magical aspects of Islam, presented in an ethnographic framework that emphasised the traces of ‘beseeching hands’ without questioning whether the objects were in their rightful place.

The ambition to build an esteemed collection overshadowed considerations of provenance, trapping the steles in the same narrative for forty years or more. Rigorous research into such objects is essential not only to challenge colonial categorisations but also to recognise their intrinsic art historical, genealogical, and religious significance, reconnecting them to broader bodies of knowledge. In that sense, a more precise identification of the deceased, Shayk Rashid ed Din, and his biography enables a reconstruction of his familial ties, spiritual affiliations. The carved dedication to this person, also connects the objects to broader intellectual and poetic traditions.

The information I have gathered in this research, can be a step towards further understanding of underdocumented Timurid woodwork and the work of individual master carvers. For instance, through collaborations with the Bojnord Mirror House Museum, who conserve the doors of the Shayk Rashid ed Din mausoleum which bear the signature of Ibn Nizam, a servant of Zul-Jalal wa al-Ikram. Possibly these gravestones were carved by the same najjar. Additionally, I have attempted to underscore the importance of provenance research, particularly for recent acquisitions from the art market. Despite the frequent absence of documentation for objects acquired from art dealers, my methodology

of cross-referencing diverse sources, including academic literature and online records, has turned out to reveal crucial insights. As a result, my research has shed light on the original shrine context of the WM-63112-1 & 2, though the exact circumstances of their removal remain inconclusive.

Finally, this study demonstrates that the mausoleum, the original context of the gravestones continues to be valued – not only through legal recognition, as the shrine is listed as a heritage monument in Iran, but also through conservation and protection of other remaining woodwork by the Museum in Bojnord and through the narratives shared by tourists and pilgrims who document their experiences with the site. The presence of the grave steles in the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam therefore raises ethical concerns, reinforcing the broader issue of contested collecting practices within the institution in recent times.

Karolien Nédée is a museum researcher based in the Netherlands. She obtained MA degrees in Law and in Social & Cultural Anthropology. From 2019-2020, she worked as a curatorial assistant on the project ‘Oceania: A Sea of Islands’ at the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. At the time of writing, she was working as a provenance researcher based at Wereldmuseum Rotterdam.

Acknowledgments

My thanks go out to my colleagues at the Wereldmuseum, including Mohamad Babazadeh for his help with translating, Erdogan Aykaç for his suggestion on the al Bayt symbolism and Jessica Hensel for her input in improving this article.

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Tides and currents: Different meanings, shifting values, and changing objects

The journey of carvings from the Félix Roussel/Arosa Sun

Erdogan Aykaç

Introduction

In 1929 a ship called Félix Roussel was built: grand, richly decorated and ready to explore the oceans. In the course of its history the ship transformed multiple times: changing names, purpose and, consequently, persons on board. Something that remained during these stages, were a set of carved panels and statues copied from the Hindu-Buddhist temple Angkor Wat in Cambodia. With the demolishment of the

ship, the carvings ended up in three different museums: Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, and the Hoogovens Museum in IJmuiden. This article follows the journey of the ship and the layered meaning of the different panels in terms of material and immaterial culture. It does so by staying close to the nautical and by using the paradox of the Ship of Theseus.

This old paradox knows different interpretations – all of which unsettling to museological notions of preservation, authenticity and narratology. Described first by the Greek philosopher Plutarch around 75 AD, the paradox refers to Greek mythology, namely to the story of Theseus who returned from Crete to Athens after he slayed the Minotaur. The Athenians wanted to preserve the ship as a relic and for commemoration. However, over time the ship began to decay, and the original planks were replaced one by one (Weston & Dojhari 2012: 411). The paradox of Theseus then raises the following question: to what extent can we still speak of the original Ship of Theseus? Is the ship transformed into something else? And if that is the case, at what point or at which plank did the ship transform, thereby, producing a different meaning and serving a distinct purpose?

By tracing the journeys and narratives related to the panels, with the paradox in mind, I explore

what persists and changes with regard to an object. In that vein, it raises fundamental questions on provenance research, most notably, the importance of taking into account different contexts that objects and collections travelled by and through. How are histories connected and part of broader narratives, but also how are they imbued with their own specificity and ‘destiny’? Put differently, how does provenance research account for the layered meanings of objects and collections that are separated by institutions but connected by their materiality: objects that departed from a same destination and history, but somehow marked by different journeys or, metaphorically speaking, ‘planks’. The first section gives a general overview of the ship and how the panels became dispersed over different museum collections. It touches on changing purposes, things that remain and disappear, and a colonial framework that transforms but never leaves. The second section delves deeper into the material history of the ship and the origins of the carvings. It situates the ship amongst colonial agents and exotic imagery. The third section discusses the different treatment and embedding of the carvings in the Dutch museums, while the last section ties this research together and concludes with some critical questions in terms of provenance research.

The journeys of the panels and statues

The Félix Roussel was constructed in 1929 by the ship building company Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire in SaintNazaire, France. It was commissioned by the Compagnie des messageries Maritimes, which focused amongst others on high clientele luxury tourism between France and its colonies in East Asia. The company itself had developed close relations with the French authorities as it facilitated, strengthened or enabled the French colonial administration in terms of trade, tourism and postal services (Liberatore & McKenna: 2018). In that line, the Félix Roussel was built for tourist purposes, more specifically to facilitate and stimulate tourism from France to its colonies in East Asia, French Indochina. The interior of the Félix Roussel reflected the ship’s purpose and destination as it combined grandeur with oriental and European styles. The oriental influences and images were particularly visible in the main restaurant of the ship for first class travellers. The ceiling was painted blue and the walls were decorated with carved panels that were copied from stone reliefs, depicting Hindu epics, from the Hindu-Buddhist temple Angkor Wat. The ship also displayed wooden statues that were copied from Angkor

Wat, such as the seven-headed nāga.1 Additionally, there were actual palm trees on the ship to give the passengers an even stronger ‘tropical’ and ‘exotic’ feeling. In sum, all of these elements reflected and reproduced oriental and colonial discourses and stereotypes, while the ship itself can be seen as an extension of the French colonial framework and enterprise: initiating and facilitating tourism between France and its colonies in East Asia.

However, the function of the Félix Roussel soon changed. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 transformed the Félix Roussel from a tourist ship into one serving the war purpose, more specifically carrying British troops throughout the region. In fact, it was operational in a naval battle against the Japanese in the Strait of Malacca: defending European possessions in the Pacific. The ship was even awarded the Croix de Guerre2 for successfully fending off an attack and landing a British regiment intact in Singapore. After the war, in 1955, the ship transformed again. It was sold to the Italian shipowner Ricci, who had founded the Arosa Line in Switzerland, and the name of the ship changed from Félix Roussel to Arosa Sun. Although renovated several times, the carved wooden panels and

1 A half-human, half-serpent (in this case a cobra) being, which was considered as (partially) divine.

2 An important French military decoration.

statues remained intact. The Arosa Sun sailed under the flag of Panama from Bremerhaven to Montreal and made several cruises in the Caribbean, hence becoming once again a tourist ship. Eventually, in 1959, it made its last sea voyage due to bankruptcy (Jutter | Hofgeest 14 June 2020).

As a result, in September 1960, a major steel manufacturing company in IJmuiden, Hoogovens,3 bought the Arosa Sun. This time with the purpose of providing additional housing to labour migrants. Many West-European countries made use of labour migrants to rebuild the industries and economies that were destroyed during the WWII. Especially heavy labour in mining and industries were needed, and it remained a challenge to fill that demand with local workers due to high costs. In this context, ‘guestworker’ programs were developed getting temporary cheap labour from the peripheries of Europe and the Mediterranean, especially in the period 1964-1973. These peripheries were initially located in Southern Europe. Later on, the periphery moved further south and east where the labour was even cheaper, for example to Morocco and Turkey (Michael 2007: 159–162). In the Netherlands, many of the guestworkers were housed in pensions and camps, such as Woonoord Atatürk in Amsterdam. However, also

‘pension ships’ were used as the example of Arosa Sun illustrates.4 The residents of these camps and pension ships were put in a precarious position as they were isolated, stigmatised and heavily dependent on their employer. For example, the housing was directly facilitated by and linked to the company. Any form of unemployment or conflict would not only lead to the immediate loss of work and income, but also of housing (Vogel 2005: 126–127). This conceptualisation of labour residents or ‘guestworkers’ can be seen as yet another form of the colonial, especially with its problematic approach towards these groups, seeing them as ‘cheap labour’, ‘less developed’, and as ‘outsiders/foreigners’ – even though many of them decided to stay and become permanent citizens. There was a deliberate selection of workers that were unskilled, uneducated, and poor: vulnerable groups that were kept at distance from Dutch citizens or labourers (Lucassen 2017). This was also visible in Hoogovens, as most of the guest workers were recruited in Sardinia, Italy with the focus on finding

3 Since 2010 Tata Steel IJmuiden.

4 Some of the residents were also Dutch employees at Hoogovens who either could not find housing in the IJmond region or did not want to move permanently, therefore only staying at the Arosa Sun during their shift. However, the largest portion of the residents consisted of labour migrants from Italy and to a lesser degree from Spain (Nieuwe Haarlemsche Courant 1961).

individuals that could fill positions of ‘somewhat heavier calibre of labour’ than usual (Nieuwe Haarlemsche Courant 1961: 4).

The Arosa Sun could initially house 600 people, but later this number was reduced to 475.5

From 1961 to 1974 the Arosa Sun was the home for many of the Italian and Spanish migrants working in Hoogovens. During their entire stay, the panels would remain on board and become part of their domestic life. However, at some point, the Arosa Sun could not meet the housing demand due to the growing influx of labour migrants. Therefore, in 1964, a second pension ship named Casa Marina was used to house the migrants. In 1974, Hoogovens constructed special residencies for the ‘foreign labour migrants’ and the Arosa Sun was not needed anymore. After thirteen years of being a home to people, it was sold to the Spanish shipbreaking company Hierros Ardez S.A. in Bilbao. Although this meant the end of the ship, the carved wooden panels and statues were ‘saved’. Before the Arosa Sun was shipped to Spain to be demolished, these objects were taken out of the

5 Different articles in the media refer to 680 as the number of residents: see Jutter | Hofgeest 14 June 2020 or IJmuider Courant 1 December 2022. However, an internal archival document of Hoogovens on the Arosa Sun of 11 March 1974 mentions the number of 600, which supposedly was reduced to 475.

ship and donated to Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam and Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde in Rotterdam.6 In other words, the objects were split and divided amongst these two museums. Additionally, some objects from the Arosa Sun were left at the Hoogovens.

In Rotterdam, these objects received no status: although they were registered, they were never transformed into museum collections and were left in the depot up until 2007; when the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam was renovated. As a result of that renovation, the carved panels were given a new purpose and used as decoration of the museum’s interior. In Amsterdam, the objects immediately entered the museum’s collection.7 The items in Hoogovens were included in the Hoogovens Museum, which was founded in 2009 thus bearing witness to their history with Italian and Spanish migrant workers. As will be elaborated on in the section entitled ‘The panels in the Dutch museums’, in each of these institutions the panels were embedded in a specific narrative and provided with their own purpose and meaning.

6 Both of these museums are now named Wereldmuseum and are together with Wereldmuseum Leiden collaborating with each other. Hence, hereafter they will be referred to Wereldmuseum Amsterdam and Wereldmuseum Rotterdam.

7 Inventory numbers TM-4943-1a; TM4943-2; TM-4943-3; TM-4943-4; TM-4943-5; TM-4943-6; TM-4943-7; TM-4943-8; and TM-4943-9.

Félix Roussel and the impression of Angkor Wat

Félix Joseph Guillaume Marie Roussel (1856-1925) was a French lawyer, politician, and more importantly an art collector. Roussel collected various objects from different regions, including East Asia. For example, in 1925, Hôtel Drouot auctioned a collection from him that consisted of ceramics, carved wood and lacquer from China and Japan (Drouot 1923). Moreover, he was a member of the admission committees for various international exhibitions, such as the St. Louis World’s Fair in the United States in 1904 and the World Fair in Turin, Italy in 1911 (Archives Nationales LH//2402/74). For his services to the French State, he was awarded the Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1919. He was also chairman of the board of directors of the Compagnie des Messageries maritimes from 1914 to 1925. As such, Roussel was part of global art trade and integrated in the French political and colonial network. His prominence and influence were reflected when a ship was built that honored his legacy and was named after him in 1929: the Félix Roussel

As mentioned above, the interior of the Félix Roussel was decorated with carvings that depicted scenes from the stone reliefs of Angkor Wat. Although some articles suggest that they were made locally in Cambodia, this assumption seems unlikely (Hoogovens

Museum n.d.: ‘Hotelschip’). An initial material analysis of the carvings reveal that the panels consist of multiple layers of wood. The top layer on which the carvings are created and visible are most likely beech wood. This form of beech wood originates predominantly from Europe, thereby suggesting that the panels were probably carved in Europe.8 This argument is further strengthened by the fact that in the period 1925 to 1948, the Messageries maritimes decorated more of its ships in a mixture of Art Deco and orientalist style. The different ships corresponded in terms of their interior and style with their destination. For example, the Champollion (1925) and the Mariette Pacha (1926) included decoration inspired by ancient Egypt, while the Aramis (1932) was adorned with Cretan inspired art. In a similar line, the Félix Roussel included Cambodian Khmer art and references to Angkor Wat. The architect Paul Roque, and decorator and designer Marc Simon, who had a studio in Paris, were both responsible for the design, carvings and sculptures on board (French Lines n.d.). However, this does not mean that they carved the panels and statues themselves. More likely, they commissioned a workshop in France or the panels were made in the studio

8 The initial quick analysis has been conducted by Jessica Hensel who is a conservator affiliated with the Wereldmuseum and the University of Amsterdam.

Figure 1. A photograph of the Paris Colonial Exhibition of 1931 in Paris, in which you see how the temples of Angkor Wat were completely reproduced in detail allowing the visitors to ‘experience’ the ‘Orient’.

of Marc Simon himself. The abovementioned arguments also make it unlikely that the carvings were part of Félix Roussel’s private art collection. Closer analyses of the carvings further demonstrate that they were finished with different layers that varied and consisted of green, red, and gold paint. Moreover, they contained varnish and a stain. Additionally, it would not have been too difficult to copy the basreliefs and sculptures in Angkor Wat as images of them were widespread across Europe, especially in France.

This was visible in the National Colonial Exhibition of Marseilles in 1922, the Arts Décoratifs of Paris in 1925, and the Paris Colonial Exhibition of 1931, in which the entire temple of Angkor Wat was reproduced by architect Blache and sculpturer Auberlet, thereby further increasing the popularity of ‘exoticism’ in France (Auberlet & Laurent, n.d.).

In this same period, archaeologists captured the reliefs and sculptures on film in more detail (Abad 2022). Thus, further contributing to the spread of

detailed images of Angkor Wat and its popularity in Europe.

In sum, the popularity of ‘exoticism’, especially the interest in Cambodian Khmer Art, in relation to tourism to East Asia, probably led to the designing of the interior of the Félix Roussel in this style; including the commissioned work of carvings.

The panels in Dutch museums

In 1974, the Félix Roussel/Arosa Sun had served its purpose at Hoogovens IJmuiden and was ready to be demolished. However, before the ship went on its last journey, all of the carvings were stripped and donated to both Wereldmuseum Rotterdam and Amsterdam. In the spring of 1974, the objects were transferred to the museum depot of the municipality of Rotterdam to be later divided between the two abovementioned museums. Correspondence on 4 and 8 February 1985 between the two museums reveal an inventory of 18 carved panels, four wrought iron doors that contained carvings depicting elephants, two carved statues of the seven-headed cobra, and one carved panel resembling two goddesses (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam n.d.: ‘Correspondence’). However, the same correspondence notes that one panel and the wrought iron doors were missing. The documentation includes

an overview of the placement of each carved panel and statue within the ship. The numbers on the overview correspond with the numbers written on the backside of each panel. In theory, the placement of the panels could therefore be reconstructed as part of the interior of the ship.

The objects in the municipality’s depot were eventually divided between Wereldmuseum Amsterdam and Rotterdam in 1985. The archives record that seven carved panels went to the Amsterdam, while the rest were officially moved to Wereldmuseum Rotterdam.

Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

All of the objects that stayed in the depot of Wereldmuseum Rotterdam remained untouched and without ‘formal status’. They were never transformed into the museum’s collection. However, the statues received a temporary inventory number that contained the label ‘ONG’,9 which means ‘unnumbered’. It is unclear what the exact reason was for not making these objects part of the permanent collections, but its provenance could have to do with it. The objects were copies and were not seen as ‘originals’. Most likely, they were branded as fake or an imitation. In that line, for an ‘ethnographic museum’, that was primarily interested in the culture of 9 Inventory number WM-ONG-50.

Figure 2. The overview illustrates placement of the carved panels and statues in the so-called Cambodia room of the Arosa Sun (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam n.d.: ‘Correspondence’).

‘others’ and how to portray them in a so-called ‘authentic’ way, the carvings would possibly have had little value. That perspective illustrates tensions in the notion of authenticity and the museum’s ethnographic desire of reaching it. In terms of the ship of Theseus a first interesting question can be asked here. How much remains of Angkor Wat in the copy? And when does a copy become something in itself – an autonomous woodcarving with its very

own provenance – with layers or panels to unravel? Perhaps even with its own inventory number?

The ten panels and two statues remained at the depot of the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam until the 2000s. The Wereldmuseum Rotterdam was renovated several times under the directorship of Stanley Bremer (2001-2015). During one of these renovations in 2007, the panels were taken out of the depot and used

Figure 3. The panels decorating the Elie van Rijckevorselzaal in Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. Photograph: Irene de Groot, 2024.

as embellishments. To be precise, they were used to decorate one of the rooms on the top floor of the museum that has a view over the River Maas and the famous Erasmus Bridge. This space named Elie van Rijckevorselzaal10 functions as a banqueting room and is rented for meetings and special events.

10 Elie van Rijckevorsel (1845-1928) is considered one of the founders of the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. His donation of about 900 objects formed the initial core of the Wereldmuseum-collections.

Since the panels had no official status, they could easily be employed for this purpose. The panels were cut to fit the wall, thereby physically altering the objects. One panel also ended up decorating the hallway, directly across from the director’s office door. This re-use adds another layer to the questions just mentioned above: to what extent can we still speak of the ‘original’ panels? Are they transformed into something else due to their cutting and their new context?

Interestingly, in the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam the panels ended up serving the same purpose for which they were initially made, namely for decoration or grandeur, giving a somewhat similar orientalist or, one can even argue, an exotic feeling. There is no contextualisation or reference to the origin of the panels. In other words, the whole narrative and history of the Félix Roussel/Arosa Sun, including the Hoogovens IJmuiden, is left out. The panels are altered and the collections more fragmented. The panels transform the Elie van Rijckevorselzaal into a luxurious and exclusive space. While at the Félix Roussel they referred to the French colonies and the ship’s touristic destination in East Asia, here they refer to the journey of the museum, its collections and its own struggle with what it means to be an ethnographic museum with roots in colonial history.

Wereldmuseum Amsterdam

As noted, the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam requested seven carved panels coming from the Félix Roussel/Arosa Sun. Different to the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, the panels were transformed into national collections. Although both museums share, to a certain degree, a similar colonial history and background, the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam developed slightly differently, especially, from the mid-20th century onwards. In that period the museum was mainly interested

in (international) development aid and cooperation. This focus probably played a role in adding the carvings to the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam collections in 1985. Additional archival research reveals a statement that further supports this argument. In a letter sent on 8 February 1985 from the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam to Rotterdam the purpose of the panels in Amsterdam is being explained. Namely that they are going to be used in an exhibition called Temporary Home, children’s drawings from Cambodian refugee camp11 that opens only a few days later, on 13 February 1985. The exhibition was co-organised with Stichting Vluchtelingenwerk, the Netherlands Refugee Foundation. The exhibition illustrated the lives of Cambodian refugees in Thailand through children’s drawings. The panels probably served to reconstruct and reproduce Cambodia within the exhibition space. A practice which was not uncommon in the museum: aiming to experience different cultures and peoples within an exhibition space in a more literal manner. In this context, the panels served an important purpose, hence arguing for making them part of the permanent collections. Although this perspective of the museum shifted and was criticised from the mid-1980’s onwards, these panels were probably

11 The official name in Dutch: Tijdelijk Thuis, kindertekeningen uit Cambodjaans vluchtelingenkamp.

part of the last legacy of this policy era. Later on, in 2000, the panels were on loan at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Annual Fair of the Directorate of Social and Institution Development (DSI). The DSI focused on development aid and strategy regarding the reduction of poverty in the Global South. In this context, the panels again served the line of international development and aid that the museum inaugurated.

Since then, the panels have not been used in exhibitions and remain in the museum’s storage, as part of the permanent collections. One can argue that in the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam the panels were used in a similar way as on the ship Félix Roussel, namely reproducing the ‘feeling’ of Cambodia. However, in the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam it had a different purpose: one serving international development aid. In this context, the same question could be asked from the paradox of the Ship of Theseus: what does this added layer of international development and the institutional history of the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam do with these panels? And with the scattered others? Perhaps used similarly as decoration, also compared to the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, they carry an overlapping history, yet to enable different and new narratives.

Hoogovens Museum

Although internal documentation within Hoogovens Museum and the

Wereldmuseum state that all of the carvings (panels and statues) were donated to both Wereldmuseum Rotterdam and Amsterdam, this seems not entirely the case. As mentioned earlier, the museums noted that one panel and four wrought iron doors were missing in the inventory in the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam depot. These objects reappeared in 2009 when Hoogovens Museum opened its doors to tell the history of Hoogovens IJmuiden. Apparently, these objects had never been shipped to the depot of Wereldmuseum Rotterdam and remained at the headquarters of Hoogovens. Additionally, the company held the ship’s bell, steering wheel, a piece of its handrail, and a casted tiger figure. These objects are displayed in a museum space named after the ship: Arosa Sun. Interestingly, in this museum the narrative and reference to Angkor Wat and history of the panels shifts. It is in this exhibition space that the panels are connected to the history of Hoogovens and the emphasis is put on migration and labour, instead of colonial grandeur or aid, hereby illustrating a different journey and meaning of the panels.

From 1961 to 1974 the Félix Roussel/ Arosa Sun was home to hundreds of Italian and Spanish labour migrants. The panels and statues were left intact. The dining space of the ship where some of the carvings were visible was made into a common recreational

Figure 4. The seven headed nāga’s remained positioned in the hallway and staircase (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam n.d.: ‘Correspondence’).

area. As stated in the magazine Hoogovenzicht on the Arosa Sun:

A television set forms an odd contrast to a wall on which artists from IndoChina have depicted their religion and history in woodcarvings. The stairwell, where ladies and gentlemen once descended in their evening dress under cheerful chatter to take their meals, is also richly decorated with temple guards, goddesses

and sacred elephants carved from wood (Hoogovens Museum n.d.: ‘Hotelschip’).

The document claims that the woodcarvings were made by local artists from East Asia, which seems, as explained in the second section of this article, unlikely. Nonetheless, the text helps to visualise life and the interior on board of the Arosa Sun. It also describes how in the same recreational area photos and posters that referred to the Netherlands and Italy decorated

the walls. The majority of the residents were Italian labour migrants who had turned the Arosa Sun into their homes through stories, memories, and embodiment. In that sense, the carvings on the ship had an entirely different meaning for these residents. It was a reference to their home in the Netherlands and the community that was formed around them on the Félix Roussel/Arosa Sun.

Questions to be asked

I traced the journey and origin of the carvings of panels and statues from the Félix Roussel/Arosa Sun describing how they first served on the ship to be subsequently scattered over different museums in the Netherlands –constantly serving different purposes. The paradox of the Ship of Theseus deals with this journey, but more importantly the impact of each journey on the carvings in terms of meaning. The objects were once used to decorate the ship Félix Roussel for touristic meanings. They were copied from the reliefs and statues from Angkor Wat and probably made in France itself. In that line, they reflect the colonial and orientalist mindset of western Europe, namely how East Asia was framed as Europe’s exotic other. Later on, the ship played a military role during World War II in the Pacific. Finally, the ship functioned as housing for Italian and Spanish labour migrants that were

working in Hoogovens IJmuiden. When the ship was eventually demolished, the carvings on board were divided among three museums: Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, and Hoogovens Museum. These panels have different afterlives and in each museum they are used in different ways. To what extent can we still speak of the same panels after each journey, alteration or even separation? After each panel reached a different shore, a different destiny: collection, room or depot?

The paradox of the Ship of Theseus allows us to raise different questions. What does it mean that the collection of the ship has been separated? In Rotterdam the objects have no status and are used to decorate an exclusive and luxurious room called Elie van Rijckevorselzaal. Perhaps they echo the luxurious and to a certain degree the orientalist feeling of the Félix Roussel/Arosa Sun. At the same time, it demonstrates that a copy or replica was not deemed interesting enough to be part of the collection and was merely used for decoration purposes, neglecting the narratives that could be told with these panels. In Amsterdam they give insights into a museum’s policy and interest period, namely the focus on international aid and development. Here the panels were made into national collections and used to recreate a known image of Cambodia – Angkor Wat – with

the aim of drawing attention to the situation of Cambodian refugees, thus using a similar methodology as in the International Colonial Exhibition in Paris in 1931, but with a different purpose and motivation. In Hoogovens Museum the carvings tell the story of the ship Arosa Sun. It tells a part of the history of the company and, related to it, the Italian and Spanish labour migrants that were living on the ship. A large part of that community is still living in the Netherlands and there are many articles and interviews of former inhabitants talking about the ship and their memories of it.12

All of the carvings carry similar, but also different historicities. The similarity deals with the initial making of the panels as part of the ship Félix Roussel. They talk about a particular colonial history of France, but perhaps WestEurope more broadly. They give insights into the colonial ambitions and mindset, but by that same line of reasoning also to the racism and (symbolic) violence that the colonial system produced and reproduced. The panels all shared the transition of the Félix Roussel into the Arosa Sun; eventually becoming a home for many Italian and Spanish labour migrants working in the Hoogovens IJmuiden. From there on, the panels departed separately on different journeys. Each of them adding different

layers of immaterial culture and historicities. They give insights into (the history of) different museums, their thinking and interest, their emphasis and what they want to tell.

12 See for example: NH Nieuws 30 March 2022 and IJmuider Courant 13 September 2022.

But what does this exactly mean for provenance research? The panels illustrate that while one can depart with one object or a collection, it is important to take the whole picture or journey into account. It is obvious that museums cannot tell every history and narrative related to an object. The narratives are determined by exhibitions or the museum’s interest, but as this article demonstrates it is important to take the entire journey, the context and embeddedness in collections as a whole for the purpose of provenance research. Although all of the carvings have a different destination, in essence they possess the same historical layers, which one cannot and should not neglect. All of these historicities coexist and should be told next to each other. In that line, the question arises: what should be done with the carvings that are decorating Wereldmuseum Rotterdam? Should they remain as decoration? Or should they be turned into permanent collections? If that it is the case, where do they belong? In the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam collections, to complement the rest of the carvings over there? Or should they be added to the Rotterdam collections? I would argue for the latter. The carvings tell a particular history and

narrative related to the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam: a narrative about the ‘Self’ as an institute that should be told. These carvings are now linked to Rotterdam and tell a particular history.

I want to end by further emphasising the importance of collaboration within and between institutions for provenance research. It was my colleague Ilja Proost who as a registrar works with the collections in the storage of Rotterdam that brought the panels to my attention. His help with the documentation on the panels helped enormously to initiate this research. Additionally, it was Jessica Hensel who as a conservator managed to identify the material that was used for the carvings, helping me with their provenance. Moreover, Johan van Ikelen who was a former employee of Hoogovens IJmuiden and involved at the Museum Hoogovens managed to provide me with more information on the ship Arosa Sun and all of the related panels. I am grateful for all of their help and advice. Without them and their institution, the whole journey could not have been mapped.

Erdogan Aykaç is the Curator Collections, Migration and the City at the Wereldmuseum. His interest lies in telling new and different narratives on the collections, through collaboration with diasporic communities and makers. He recently completed his PhD at the University of Groningen, in which he

researched the constitution of Turkey’s identity and geopolitical role from a Turkish and European perspective. In doing so, he looked at how political elites drew upon Turkey’s geography, culture, and history in discourses regarding different topics such as migration and diasporic communities.

Bibliography

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Alexander, Michael. 2007. Cities and Labour Immigration: Comparing Policy Responses in Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Tel Aviv London: Routledge.

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Drouot, André Desvouges & André Portier. 1925. Objets d’art d’Extrême Orient, collection F. Roussel: [vente du 2 décembre 1925]. Cariatide, bibliothèque numérique de l’INHA, NUM CV10412_19251202. Paris. https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/ idurl/1/63104.

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Documentary photographer Yara Jimmink: Ways of understanding my family history

Marjolein

van Asdonck

The exhibition Colonialism and Rotterdam was on display at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam from 30 November 2023 through 3 November 2024. One of the contemporary artists whose work was shown in the exhibition was documentary photographer Yara Jimmink (1990). In her body of work, Jimmink examines the ways in which the histories of colonialism continue to affect people’s lives in the present and, in particular, the lives of her own family. The collaboration with Yara Jimmink took place as part of the museum’s ambition to anchor community engagement more deeply within the organisation.

For the Wereldmuseum, collaboration with communities is crucial in order to acknowledge, address and make amends for historical injustices, which have affected and disrupted those communities in a multitude of ways. The fact that the museum played an important role within colonial practices, the effects of which still have an

impact in the present, strengthens the urgency and responsibility to work together with community members and representatives and to do it well: ‘Whether it concerns communities of origin abroad, or diaspora communities “here at home”, community work forms part of a practice of restoration, of just redistribution and of decolonisation.’1

Photographer Yara Jimmink’s family history is deeply connected to the colonial past of the Netherlands in Indonesia, particularly to the Banda Islands within the Maluku province and to Papua Barat Daya (a province of what was called Nederlands NieuwGuinea in colonial times). Faced with the many gaps in her family’s history, Jimmink’s work embodies her personal search for, and the process of becoming aware of, her own ancestry. At the same time, her work represents an entire generation of young adults in diaspora, facing similar challenges. One of the reasons why the museum and Jimmink decided to collaborate in the exhibition Colonialism and Rotterdam, was to provide a community counter narrative to the historical objects and documents in the exhibition. This way, communities would be able to find recognition and appreciation within the museum setting, where other visitors were given the opportunity to understand how our colonial past continues to live on in

the present. Jimmink characterises her work as ‘a dialogue between past and present, between history and memory, using her own photography and archival material’.

History

In 2023, the exhibition Colonialism and Rotterdam opened its doors at the Wereldmuseum. It was the outcome of a research project into the colonial and slavery past of the city of Rotterdam. The project also mapped the colonial collections of the city of Rotterdam, including the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, and the unequal practices of collecting that took place (Oostindie 2020: 323–392). The two-year research, conducted by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, was published in the form of three books in October 2020.2 The research findings eventually caused Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb of Rotterdam to officially apologise on behalf of the Municipal Executive on 10 December 2021, for the involvement in colonialism and slavery of successive Rotterdam administrations from 1600 onward. ‘An involvement’, said Mayor Aboutaleb, ‘that is traceable to this day’ (‘Gemeente Rotterdam’ 2024).

1 According to an internal memo that was published within the organisation in 2019.

2 The outcomes of the research project were published in Oostindie 2020; Van Stipriaan 2020; and Guadeloupe et al. 2020.

The municipality then asked the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam to curate an exhibition in order to let a wider audience become acquainted with the research findings. After several meetings, discussions and sessions with the exhibition team and members of Rotterdam diaspora communities and stakeholders during 2022, the opening of Colonialism and Rotterdam on 30 November 2023 took place within the Commemoration Year of Slavery History (1 July 2023-1 July 2024).

Colonialism and Rotterdam

In the exhibition Colonialism and Rotterdam, five distinct themes together explored the colonial history of the city, situating Rotterdam in a broader context of European colonial and slavery networks. It did so by displaying historical objects, contemporary artworks, archival documents and personal accounts alongside each other. Simultaneously, this narrative aimed at portraying how today’s city of Rotterdam and its residents have been shaped through those systems.

As formulated by Mayor Aboutaleb, the traces of colonialism are still visible and experienced on a daily basis in Rotterdam. They are tangible in the street names and statues that glorify the colonial past, in the urban development in which parts of the city and its infrastructure were financed with the proceeds of slavery

and colonialism, and in, for example, the building and collection of the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam itself, founded in 1885 as an ethnographic museum. At the same time, it is manifested in a large number of diasporic communities that ended up living in Rotterdam through waves of migration, during and after colonialism: some voluntary, some forced and in most violent circumstances. As a result, traces of colonialism can be found in intangible culture that has become fused with Rotterdam, such as slang, food culture and festivals like the Rotterdam Summer Carnival. But prejudices related to racial hierarchy, the basis of global colonial systems, also persist, still leading to exclusion, exploitation and discrimination, not only on a personal level, but systemically in education, in housing and labour markets, and in governments. These are the aforementioned historical injustices that still have an impact in the present. Rotterdam, for example, is one of the hardest hit municipalities from the childcare benefits scandal, in which tens of thousands of childcare benefit recipients were falsely accused of fraud by the Tax Office between 2009 and 2015. Due to institutional racism in parts of this government department, parents with a migrant background in particular were labelled fraudsters

(‘Meer Rotterdammers’ 2024; ‘Kabinet erkent’ 2024).

With the longstanding complicity of ethnographic museums in colonial violence and dispossession, and the tradition of ignoring and excluding indigenous and diasporic voices in mind, it was of great importance to include the perspectives of Rotterdam members and artists from diasporic communities in the exhibition Colonialism and Rotterdam. Their voices became part of the exhibition in a literal sense, as they could be listened to in relation to the different themes. Additionally, their voices were reflected in the work of thirteen contemporary artists that connected their family stories to colonial histories and objects.

Yara Jimmink

One of those thirteen contemporary artists who exhibited their work in Colonialism and Rotterdam was the documentary photographer Yara Jimmink (fig. 1). She was educated at the Royal Academy of Art (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten- KABK) in The Hague. Her graduation project entitled When Summer Became Winter (2020) is an intimate portrait that combines documentary photography with black-and-white photographs from Jimmink’s family archive – that would become a recurring feature in her work. With this approach, she aimed to show the effects of colonial migration on a

family. When Summer Became Winter was eventually turned into an outdoor exhibition by FOTODOK3 on the wharf of The Utrecht Archives (Het Utrechts Archief). The central theme of FOTODOK in the year 2020-2021 was ‘collective memory’ where they wanted to show how family histories are able to reflect historical events and eras (‘Outdoor installatie’ 2024). Additionally, When Summer Became Winter was selected for the Jakarta International Photo Festival (JIPFest) in 2023, with ‘generations’ as the overarching theme. The curatorial team’s selection highlighted ‘the unspoken narratives about how generation forms out of a dark past, dynamic present, and the speculative future’, in which Jimmink’s work touched on all four themes: Belonging, Future, Disruption, and (Dis)unity (‘Announcing JIPFest’ 2024).

This article is a summary of an interview conducted on 5 February 2024 between Marjolein van Asdonck, curator Southeast Asia at the Wereldmuseum, and Yara Jimmink. In this interview, Jimmink reflects on her career and her work as a documentary photographer with a family history rooted in the Dutch colonial past,

3 According to its website, FOTODOK is an organisation based in Utrecht that offers documentary photographers an artistic platform through exhibitions on socially pressing issues, an in-depth program of lectures and events, and talent programs for local, national and international emerging artists (‘Over FOTODOK’ 2024).

Figure 1. Artist Yara Jimmink, at the opening of the exhibition Colonialism and Rotterdam in the Wereldmuseum. Photograph: Alexander Santos Lima, 2023.

as well as her contribution to the exhibition Colonialism and Rotterdam.

Van Asdonck: What road did you travel before you started your project When Summer Became Winter?

Jimmink: ‘Before I enrolled in the KABK, I travelled through Southeast Asia for some time. During that trip I photographed a lot. If I compare my work from that time with my current work, the vision behind it is still the same: documenting something that passes. From childhood, my father made me look through the lens and

taught me about framing and composition. Cameras were a given in our household. However, the downside of this was that, for a long time, I regarded photography as being just a hobby. When I applied for art school, I was hesitant to submit my own photography; I thought my photographs would not meet the standards of the academy. For quite some time I experienced that hindrance, which is why I focused heavily on the technical side of photography during the first few years. I worked a lot in the studio, with flashlight and staging, searching for what at the academy was called your

“visual signature.” But at some point, I had deviated too far from what I would have liked to photograph myself. I had to return to myself.’

Van Asdonck: Can you elaborate a bit more on your graduation project When Summer Became Winter?

Jimmink: ‘Before my graduation period, I had travelled to South Africa. There I had met a woman, a woman of colour, and her infant son. For my final project I asked her permission to document her life in South Africa. But because of the outbreak of corona, that couldn’t take place. My mother has a cardboard box at home with all sorts of photos and documents, a kind of family archive. One day she put the box in front of me again and I went through the pictures. And I suddenly discovered the parallels between the topics of colonial history and repression which I focus on as an artist, concerning South Africa and Indonesia. The latter having directly affected my family.

The black-and-white photographs of my grandparents fascinated me, but the absence of information left me completely in the dark. I had no names, no dates, no locations, nothing. My grandparents had passed away long before I started this project and my mother was only six years old when she left West Papua. Too young to be able to tell me about daily life there. I vaguely remembered snippets of information

told to me during childhood, but they were not sufficient to reconstruct a family history, let alone my own identity. As stated on my website, my graduation project explored what it means when your grandparents have left behind only photographs, but no stories. I have defined this project as a dialogue between past and present, between history and memory, with the use of my own photography and archival materials. These are ways of understanding my family history.’

The past of communities in diaspora often spans several continents and contains large gaps. That past is usually not part of the curriculum, leaving communities on their own to reconstruct their histories, stumbling upon the absence of their voices in archives. Surviving documents and photographs from family collections, combined with oral family history, provide the pieces of the puzzle in restoring and recreating family histories. Yara’s family has roots in the Dutch colonial past in Indonesia, and her family history is set against the momentous events of the twentieth century: war, struggle for independence, exodus and diaspora.

Jimmink: ‘The person who would become a key figure in When Summer Became Winter was my great-uncle Ka. He was of the same generation as my grandparents Anis Samson and Mia Gerrits, and had been a very close friend of them for a long time, at least

since they lived in Sorong. We weren’t blood related, but in our community it is customary to address an older male person with ‘uncle’, and he certainly felt like family to me. Because of the so-called ‘Nieuw-Guinea’ conflict, he left Sorong in 1960.4 One year later, my family – grandfather, grandmother and mother – migrated to the Netherlands by ship and eventually ended up in Amsterdam.’

Van Asdonck: As a member of a diaspora community myself, I was moved by your description of what these conversations

4 According to Rémy Limpach and Petra Groen, Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea (the present-day Indonesian territories in western New Guinea) was left out of the 1949 transfer of sovereignty due to pressure from the Netherlands. There were three points of contention. Over 160,000 Indo-Europeans, whom the Netherlands did not wish to welcome, were seen to be best suited to settle in Papua. Furthermore, the Netherlands was unwilling to relinquish its colonial power status. Additionally, the Netherlands believed that before the Papuans could make their own political decisions, first they needed to be ‘educated’. From 1950 to 1958, political and military tensions between the Netherlands and Indonesia over Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea increased, and from 1958 to 1962 there were several military escalations. On 1 October 1962, in response to pressure from the United States, the Netherlands turned over the administration to the United Nations, which six months later turned it over to Indonesia. The referendum held in 1969 to determine whether Papuans wanted to be part of the Indonesian state is widely regarded as a farce (Groen et al. 2021: 344–348).

with Uncle Ka meant to you. You said: ‘For days I listened to Uncle Ka’s stories and clung to every word. I learned so much about myself and my family this way. My history started to become visible through his eyes. Through him I could connect past and present, although without a clear beginning or end’ (‘When Summer’ 2024).

Jimmink: ‘As a result of these conversations a new present arose, so to speak. A present in which I gradually began to recognise myself. As written on my website, the aim of my work is to show how history can be passed on so not only I, but also the visitor, has a better understanding of how history always has a place in the present (‘When Summer’ 2024). This research only just began with my graduation project; I now consider it as the starting point of a journey.’

For Colonialism and Rotterdam, Yara Jimmink was invited to exhibit parts of her work Pala, You Can’t Eat It Without Breaking The Shell (fig. 2). In the exhibition, her work was placed within the theme ‘Streets and Collections’. This theme showed how colonial conceptions were propagated in public spaces in Rotterdam, for example by erecting statues of former colonial heroes and naming neighbourhoods after colonial territories. But also in Rotterdam museum collections, by exhibiting and disseminating images of colonial territories as exotic, benevolent and empty landscapes, ready to be cul-

tivated by European powers (Pratt 2007: 118–130). The work of Maurits Ver Huell (1787-1860), draughtsman, painter and Rotterdam naval officer, is a good example. A reproduction of his watercolour Calha Boca. on the Island of Lonthoir. and Nutmeg Harvest. Banda. shows a plantation, called ‘perk’, of nutmeg trees on Banda.5 The first impression is of overwhelming green, only secondarily is the visitor’s attention drawn to the people at work: enslaved people, who had to work under harsh conditions. Ver Huell’s work, which he painted in Rotterdam, serves as a bridge between the historical objects in the exhibition and Jimmink’s contemporary contribution. The parts of Pala: You Can’t Eat It Without Breaking The Shell that were exhibited consist of the migration document of Jimmink’s grandmother, born on Banda: a portrait photograph of Yara and her mother, and a nutmeg on a small cushion in between. These are joined by sixteen blood-red ceramic shapes depicting mace, the aril of the nutmeg, hanging above the three pieces.6

Using personal documents as parts of the colonial archives, Jimmink relates the birthplace of her grandmother to the

5 Ver Huell, Quirijn Maurits Rudolf ‘Calha Boca. op het Eiland Lonthoir. en Noten-muscaat Oogst. Banda.’ Maritiem Museum Rotterdam, P2161-31 height 54.3 cm width 38.1 cm. Starting date 01-01-1820, finishing date 31-12-1835.

6 Yara Jimmink developed and created the ceramic shapes in collaboration with artist Fira Rietveld.

genocide on Banda of 1621 (fig. 3). That year, Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629) led a month-long military campaign on the Banda Islands to obtain the VOC monopoly on nutmeg. Thousands of Bandanese died (Van Goor 2015: 461–462). The color of the ceramic mace refers to that colonial violence. On the same soil these atrocities took place, Yara’s grandmother was born centuries later. The architect behind the violent expedition was VOC chief merchant Jacques l’Hermite de Jonge (1582-1624), who grew up in Rotterdam (Doedens 2008: 54). In his remonstrance of August 1612, he introduced this plan to the Heeren XVII (Jonge, 1865: 380–394).

Jimmink: ‘I created Pala: You Can’t Eat It Without Breaking The Shell on the invitation of Museum Maluku in The Hague. The challenge was how to put a personal, intimate family story with my own archival documents and my own photography, in a broader context. Where did my grandmother come from? From the Banda Islands. Why were the Banda Islands so important to the Netherlands? Because of nutmeg. Everyone knows nutmeg from cooking, ground or as a nut, but we don’t usually dwell on the historical avalanche it brought about: murder and mayhem, and centuries of colonial oppression. The nutmeg in Pala served as a metaphor for wealth on one side, and total devastation on the other. With my grandmother from Banda and myself

from Amsterdam and between them a history of over four hundred years and a geographical distance of twelve thousand kilometers. I am a product of colonial migration: my mother migrated to the Netherlands, met my Dutch father, and so I grew up in a city that became so prosperous because of its colonial past.’

Van Asdonck: How do you see the development of your work in the future?

Jimmink: ‘My aim is to make my work more and more universal. Perhaps at some point it will no longer be necessary to use my family archive, because my work describes a history that concerns us all, not just me (fig. 4).

A strong leitmotif in Pala and my other work is how people’s lives are hardly determined by themselves, but rather by the decisions of others. The fact that you have to migrate because you can’t help it, that you are ultimately at the mercy of the circumstances in which you grow up, I find painful but no less interesting. Colonialism is an important theme in my work. The personal story of the individual with the collective history behind it. It was enlightening to see my work in Colonialism and Rotterdam in the context of existing city archives. Where not only work by me, but also by the other contemporary artists made a connection between historical objects and our family history, our experience

and our decolonial message. My work made a connection to Ver Huell’s, to that idyllic, exotic plantation feeling that was not so idyllic at all – not for the indigenous people of Banda and the enslaved people who were forced to replace them at least. If an exhibition revolves exclusively around objects from the archive, then a story runs the risk of being framed as a story of the past too much, of copying colonial knowledge structures. But now the interaction between present and past has a consciousness-expanding effect.’

Van Asdonck: In 2023, you exhibited your work in Jakarta during JIPFest. How did visitors respond to it?

Jimmink: ‘Of course visitors recognised parts of Indonesia in the photographs from my family’s archive. But the fact that the combinations of images were created by someone from the Netherlands caught their attention. The life story of my grandparents impressed almost everyone who heard it. The huge migration flow from Indonesia which they were part of consisted of more than three hundred thousand people from 1945 to 1962 and beyond. My peers in Indonesia were less aware of the ongoing urgency of this topic today in the Netherlands among Moluccan, Indo-European, Peranakan Chinese and Papua diaspora communities.’

Figure 3. Pala, You Can’t Eat It Without Breaking The Shell by Yara Jimmink, exhibited in Colonialism and Rotterdam. Photograph: Alexander Santos Lima, 2023.

Van Asdonck: Did you have the opportunity to reflect on your work while participating in JIPFest in 2023?

Jimmink: ‘The trip to Indonesia in 2023 was very emotional to me. I had last travelled to Indonesia with my family in 1996, when I was six years old. Some smells and certain images from then have always stayed with me. In 2023, I made a conscious decision to travel alone to focus on my work and on the other participants of JIPFest. But when I unpacked the prints in Jakarta, especially the print of Uncle Ka, the tears kept flowing. He had passed away

shortly before and there I was, standing in the country my grandparents had to leave behind so long ago. It all felt unreal to me. At some point I decided to leave the urban landscape and travel to the countryside, trying to reconnect with nature. The train ride from Jakarta to Bandung became a meditative experience. All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind: What if my grandparents had stayed here? What would their lives have been like? In that case I would never have been born. I would have liked my grandparents to be there with me for just a moment. How would they have felt about their granddaugh-

ter showing the family archive to the public? For all I know, that would have been too painful, too public, for them. The emotions overwhelmed me, but they were also cleansing. I felt grateful to be able to stay in Indonesia. I was reminded of a centuries-long colonial regime that caused so much misery, but that ultimately allowed me to produce work in Indonesia. That felt very contradictory to me.’

Conclusion

As a documentary photographer with a family history rooted in the colonial and slavery past of the Netherlands and Indonesia, Yara Jimmink, like many other members of diaspora communities, was confronted with gaps in her family history. There are a number of reasons why the transfer of history within these communities has been problematic. In some cases, family structures have been destroyed as a result of colonialism and slavery, or physical separation from the country of origin meant a rupture in the stories that can be passed on. In other cases, trauma prevents people from talking about the period of migration, as well as the daily struggle to build a life in a new environment.

As a counter narrative to the one-sidedness of colonial knowledge structures, Jimmink offers work that, in her own words, creates a dialogue between past and present, between

history and memory, using her own photography and archival material. ‘The past is always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth’, writes Stuart Hall (1990: 226). Jimmink reconstructs her family history on her own terms. In doing so, she is building a new, multivocal present, in which not only she, but also other members of diaspora communities can recognise themselves and feel acknowledged within society.

The ethnographic museum is a place par excellence that has a long tradition of excluding the voices of the people who have a personal relationship with the objects in its collection: indigenous and diasporic communities. The work of artists from these communities brings an additional perspective to museum objects and collections by, in Jimmink’s words, linking historical objects to family histories, experiences and decolonial messages. For the future of the museum it is vital to collaborate with communities. In providing space for self-identification, new stories about the collection and about society emerge.

Marjolein van Asdonck (MA) works as the Curator Southeast Asia at the Wereldmuseum, with a focus on Indonesian material culture, colonial history and communities from the Indonesian diaspora. Prior to this, she was editor-in-chief of the magazine Moesson, founded in 1956 by the Eurasian community in the Netherlands. She studied Indonesian Languages and Cultures at the University of Leiden.

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