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Dutch Institutions abroad

DEN HAAG

Stichting Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie RKD / Bibliotheek

Foundation Netherlands Institute for Art History RKD / Library

Size 425,000 volumes, 650 current and 1,500 discontinued periodicals
Character and emphasis The Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) is a research institute collecting visual and written documentary material about Western - and particularly Dutch - fine and applied art, from the late medieval to the contemporary period. The collection of documentation is continually extended and kept up to date by its research staff. As of January 1995 the RKD and the Stichting Iconografisch Bureau, both founded in 1932, formally joined forces and merged into the Foundation RKD.
The library of the RKD is the largest art historical library in the Netherlands, collecting in the field of the history and theory of art generally - with an emphasis on Netherlandish art (i.e. including present Belgium) - as well as related topics. It is divided into sections serving the various departments of the RKD: the main library and the departments of old Netherlandish painting, old Netherlandish drawing, Dutch and Belgian art of the 19th and 20th centuries, iconography, historical topography, press documentation, archives, and foreign art. The library is rich in early and rare editions; a particular field of collecting is exhibition, collection and sales catalogues.

Special collections

• 127,000 auction catalogues, many of them annotated
• 3,500,000 annotated photographs and reproductions of works of art
• "Fiches Hofstede de Groot": a card file of 2,000,000 documentary notes on artists and works of art
• 2,000,000 newspaper cuttings
• Many private archives of Dutch artists, art dealers and art historians
• Microfiche collections: the Witt Library and the Conway Library (reproductions and photographs of Dutch and other Western painting, graphic art and sculpture), the Marburger Index (focussed on art in Germany) and Catalogues de vente (pre-1880 printed art auction catalogues kept in the main Dutch libraries and abroad)
• CD-ROM's, videotapes

Catalogues

• Automated catalogue of all acquisitions since 1988
• Part of the periodical holdings are included in NCC
• Card indexes on author's name, subject, artist's name, series, place of exhibition and collection, and name of collector
• A catalogue of sales catalogues, organised chronologically and by name of collector.
• Separate card catalogue of the historical-topographical collection (already partly accessible in automated form)

• RKD Bulletin / Stichting Cornelis Hofstede de Groot / Vrienden van het RKD, a bi-lingual (Dutch/English) bulletin, reporting on the activities and the collections of the RKD
• Between 1943 and 1973 the RKD published the periodical Bibliography of the Netherlands Institute for Art History, still an important bibliographical tool for the study of Dutch art
• The RKD publishes Oud-Holland, the second oldest still existing art-historical periodical, exclusively devoted to Dutch art (up to the 19th century)