Page 124 - Made For Trade Chinese Export Paintings In Dutch Collections

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Figs. 4.14.a. to 4.14.d.
Images of male and
female representatives
of different ethnic
groups in some the
Royer albums, a Miao
couple and a Tartarian
couple, anonymous,
watercolour on
Chinese paper,
1773-1776,
27 x 28.5 cm,
Royer Collection,
Museum Volkenkunde/
Nationaal Museum van
Wereldculturen,
inv.nos.
RV-360-378-L/12 and
RV-360-378-D/4.

location where they are kept; this information in addition to other objects in his collection.
can also be found in Appendix 1. Earlier research by Van Campen shows that the
Royer Collection, following the conveyance of
- Sets of albums a major part of this collection from the Royal
The most prominent and remarkable set of Cabinet of Rarities in 1883 to Museum
albums within the Dutch corpus is the vast and Volkenkunde and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam,
rather rare collection of so-called Royer albums. 37 can be considered the earliest sets (or series) of
This eighteenth-century set of 92 albums with albums with watercolours on paper. 38 Some of
2,960 watercolours on paper is regarded as the the early Royer sets in the Leiden museum,
earliest collection in the Netherlands. It is likely especially those depicting images of professions,
that, at that time, Royer viewed the albums in street peddlers and portrayals of the aboriginal
his The Hague ‘museum’ as documentation people of the southern Chinese provinces
material. This visual source material was clearly Guangdong, Guizhou, Guangxi and Hainan,
not intended to be ordinary home decoration; share several compelling stylistic and content
rather, Royer saw it as valuable documentation traits with the early ethnic minorities album
about China, sometimes in combination with or genre, which generally depicted non-Han

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37 Inv.nos. 360-376 to 360-383.
38 Van Campen 1995, 2000, 2000a, b, c, 2002, and 2010. The oldest constituent part of the China collection of
Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden consists of objects collected by Royer in the eighteenth century. The same applies
to the collection of the Asian Art Department of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. The mainly Chinese objects in
these old files of both museums belonged to a legacy from the widow of Royer, which was accepted by King
Willem I (1772-1843) in 1816.