ABSTRACT
Outside Leiden, too, there were collections that aroused Caspar Jacob Christiaan Reuvens’ interest, such as the antiquities which had belonged to the stadtholder Willem V and been taken to Paris by French troops. After Napoleon’s fall most of these pieces were recovered by the director of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and kept in that institute. In The Hague was the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities with a very rich ethnological collection, interspersed with archaeological finds from the Netherlands. The Hague was also the seat of the Royal Coin Cabinet with ancient and modern coins, medals and precious gemstones. Smaller collections of antiquities were owned by private collectors, art academies or local authorities and church councils. With his legal background, Reuvens had a clear view of which objects should be collected and presented in an archaeological museum.
