Archives
The RKD houses over 2.5 kilometres of archival material in the field of the visual arts of the Netherlands. In total, it is over 900 archives of artists, artists' associations, art historians and other art-related persons and firms.
Browse the archives (links to external website)
The RKD manages more than 900 archives. You can find an overview of all archives in RKD Research under RKDarchives. This database also contains a link to the inventory list for each archive (if one exists), as well as instructions for requesting archives.
Donating objects
The RKD regularly acquires new material from individuals or institutions. Do you have archival papers or objects that fit into our library collection which you would like to donate? Click here to find out more.
Requesting a loan
The RKD lends archival material from its collections for research and exhibitions. Each year hundreds of objects on loan from the RKD are exhibited in a dozen or so museums, in Holland as well as abroad.
Browse the archives
The archives can be searched in the online database RKDarchives. For overviewpages with the inventory lists in PDF format, search RKDcollections.
Access an archive
More and more archives at the RKD are being digitized and can be consulted online via RKDarchives.
Archives for which no digital file is available can be viewed in the reading room in The Hague. It goes like this:
- Look up the archive in RKDcollections.
- Click on the inventory list and choose the inventory numbers you want to view
- Send an email to archieven@rkd.nl requesting the inventory numbers at least two working days before your visit to the RKD
Good to know
For archival materials from our special collections, contact archieven@rkd.nl seven working days in advance.
Archives are generally public and free for viewing, but some archives are under disclosure restrictions. There are also certain conditions attached to accessing an archive. More information about this can be found here.
Curious about what kinds of archives the RKD has? Read on below.
Artist's archives
The RKD manages about 200 archives of Dutch artists such as Piet Mondrian, Jeanne Bieruma Oosting and Armando. These personal archives may contain correspondence, personal papers such as passports and certificates, correspondence, diaries and notebooks, work and project files, but also information connected with membership of societies, items recording participation in exhibitions, sales books, texts of lectures and presentations, sketches and preparatory studies, photos, videos, sound recordings, invitations and other printed ephemera.
Research material
This collection contains research papers left behind by prominent art historians, including the extensive archives of Rembrandt specialist Dr Abraham Bredius, the German art historian Dr Max J. Friedländer, and the archive of The Netherlands’ first professor of art history, Dr Willem Vogelsang. The expanding collection of unpublished research belonging to art historians grows year on year and is of great importance, especially for new generations of researchers. Various digitisation projects, for example Bredius’s annotations, are making a great deal of information accessible online.
Technical Documentation
The Technical Documentation collection comprises technical information about artworks, contained in such things as X-ray photographs and conservation reports. The RKD manages important technical documentation archives, assembled by, for example, Prof. J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, the Rembrandt Research Project, and Prof. Molly Faries. The RKD has also acquired archives belonging to conservators, containing conservation reports for artworks: those of Martin de Wild, Peter Hermesdorf, the Hesterman family and the Kollektief Restauratieatelier Foundation, Amsterdam. In 2020 Dr Maryan Ainsworth donated her research material relating to infrared reflectography.
Because of the specialist nature and vulnerability of the material, the Technical Documentation collection can only be consulted under supervision. You may request to see it using the contact form.
Digitisation
The RKD's collection is becoming more and more accessible online every day. The digitization of archival material has happened in several projects.
Visual documentation
The visual documentation, comprising about four million digital and analogue photos, reproductions and slides of artworks, is fully digitised and available via RKD Research. The emphasis is on Netherlandisch art from the late Middle Ages until the present, though art from foreign artists is documented as well.
Art dealers’ archives
The archives of seven major art dealers of the period 1850-1950 have been fully digitised. These are the archives of the Bachstitz Gallery, J.H. de Bois Gallery, Goupil & Cie., Huinck en Scherjon, G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, Sala & Zonen, and E.J. van Wisselingh & Co.
Modernist archives
A selection of archives from the period 1910-1960, the Modernist archives, has been digitised. These belonged to innovative, leading Dutch artists, including Paul Citroen, Nelly van Doesburg and Kees van Dongen.
Beeldhouwersarchieven
Thirteen sculptor's archives have been digitised. Together they provide a unique source of information about artistic life before, during and after the Second World War. The archives are available online.
Archives of artists’ societies
The RKD has digitised various archives of Dutch artists' societies from the period 1839-1950. The scans of the Maatschappij Arti et Amicitiae and De Onafhankelijken, among others, are available online.