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COLONIAL OBJECTS and the DISPLAY of POWER. the CURIOUS CASE of the CABINET of WILLIAM V and the DUTCH INDIA COMPANIES Edwin

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COLONIAL OBJECTS and the DISPLAY of POWER. the CURIOUS CASE of the CABINET of WILLIAM V and the DUTCH INDIA COMPANIES Edwin COLONIAL OBJECTS AND THE DISPLAY OF POWER. THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CABINET OF WILLIAM V AND THE DUTCH INDIA COMPANIES Edwin van Meerkerk It may just have started with a grieving toddler. William was only three years old when his father died. The latter, William IV, stadtholder of the Dutch United Provinces, suddenly passed away in 1751, leaving a wife and two children: Caroline, aged ten, and William , the three year old heir. Only four years earlier, William IV had been erected as hereditary head of state, thus acquiring the most powerful position anyone had ever had in the mixed constitution of the Dutch Republic. His son, now called William V, must have been unaware of his new position, but was obviously saddened by the loss of his father. One of the first things his mother Anne of Hanover did, was to acquire the first part of what was to become one of Europe’s most outstanding collections of naturalia and antiques.1 Young William is said to have marvelled at the display of stuffed animals and statues, and remained extraordinarily attached to his collection for the rest of his life. If Anne had tried to comfort her children by establishing the institution, she had clearly succeeded in her objective. The private collection of the princes of Orange, stadtholders of the Dutch Republic, had severely suffered from the political turmoil of the early eighteenth century. After the death of William III in 1702, they were debarred from power in most of the country and the King of Prussia had claimed large parts of the princely heritage, as William left no heirs. Only during the 1730s did William IV , a nephew of Wil- liam III , start building a new collection that was to reflect the status and lineage of the House of Orange. After his premature death at the age of 40, this task was left to his widow, and later to his son, Wil- liam V . The collection of William V , which he acquired jointly with 1 Pieters F.F.J.M., “Notes on the Menagerie and Zoological Cabinet of Stadholder William V of Holland, directed by Aernoud Vosmaer ”, Journal of the Society for the Bib- liography of Natural History 9 (1980) 540. 416 edwin van meerkerk his wife Wilhelmine of Prussia, therefore is a fascinating case of royal and princely collections in the late eighteenth century. Their cabi- net reflected for the most part their personal tastes (for the part they acquired) and circumstances (in the case of gifts). And it was precisely during this period that the attitude towards such collections changed radically, as did the political climate in general. William , who was to die in exile in 1806, was strongly aware of the changes in society and politics – though for the most part he opposed them. Power and Art As Tim Blanning has convincingly argued, ‘the greater the doubts about the stability or legitimacy of a throne, the greater the need for display’.2 Blanning addresses the tensions in society that were already highlighted by Habermas,3 involving the so called ‘rise of the public sphere’ and the different roles of court and bourgeoisie in the eigh- teenth century. For a Dutch stadtholder, these tensions were by defini- tion more explicit, as he was supposed to play the role of a king, while at the same time recognizing his fundamental position as a civil ser- vant, appointed by the seven separate Estates within the Republic. His world was both public and private by definition and he was both an ordinary citizen (and was treated as such) as well as a prince of royal descent (and behaved as such). These ambiguities once more make the attitude of William V towards public cultural display an intriguing example of enlightenment developments. By the time of the separation of the art gallery and cabinet of William V from the personal quarters of the stadtholder, in 1766, art had already become a matter of bour- geois concerns, rather than just an elite matter.4 In the context of the largely bourgeois Dutch Republic, this was seen in a rise of private clubs and societies devoted to science, art, and literature outside circles of the higher bourgeoisie. The collection, although it was originally conceived as a private one, is thus justly considered to be the first public museum in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, the institution as well 2 Blanning T.C.W., The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660–1789 (Oxford: 2002) 32. 3 Habermas J., Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bür- gerlichen Gesellschaft (Neuwied 1968). 4 Blanning, The Culture of Power 106–107..
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