Page 6 - Zhangzhou Or Swatow The Collection of Zhangzhou Ware at the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden, Netherlands

inhoudidddd

The Princessehof Collection and Nanne Ottema (1874–1955)

The ceramic collections of the Princessehof Museum go back to an important and passionate collector: Nanne
Ottema (1874-1955).

He was born in Leeuwarden in 1874, and in 1900 married the rich farmer’s daughter Grietje Kingma. In 1918
he succeeded his father in his business, which was the largest notary office in Friesland.

Ottema had started collecting early, and collected practically anything in the domain of applied art. He was
especially lucky with Chinese ceramics, which became, and continue to be, the pride of the Princessehof
Museum.

Nanne Ottema, photograph undated

Nanne Ottema never made it to the Far East. He acquired the Chinese porcelain from antique dealers in the
Netherlands and had built up a network of friends who collected for him in the former colonies of the Dutch
East Indies, now Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. One such friend, Anne Tjibbes van der Meulen (1862-1934),
gave his collection, which he had hunted down in the Middle East and the Dutch East Indies, to the
Princessehof Museum and continued to undertake acquisitions for Nanne Ottema during his travels.

Another collector, Reinier D. Verbeek (1841-1926), had amassed an impressive collection of “Swatow” wares
while living and working in Sumatra. After his death it was donated to the museum by his heirs and today is still
considered to be the most important collection in the world.

When Nanne Ottema died in 1955 his collections became the property of the Ottema-Kingma Foundation
(OKS), which continues to acquire Chinese porcelain as permanent loans for the Princessehof Museum to this
day.

The collections are housed in the historical buildings of the Princessehof in Leeuwarden, former residence of
Marie-Louise of Hessen-Kassel (1688–1765), widow of the last stadtholder of Friesland. In later years it became

6