Topographic Memory. Treasures from the collection of Dutch topography.

The collection Dutch topographical prints and drawings of the UBL now fully digitally accessible. Numerous originals can be seen in the exhibition Topographic Memory. Treasures from the collection of Dutch topography.

From 13 January to 27 April 2012 the UBL organizes the exhibition Topographic Memory. Treasures from the collection of Dutch topography. Town profiles and drawings of prominent buildings like, monasteries, castles, city gates and bridges are not only beautiful to look at, but can also help to reconstruct the past.

The emphasis in the collection of UBL lays in the topography of towns, including town profiles and images and plans of churches, town halls, city gates, bridges and other buildings. There are also prints and drawings of villages, monasteries, castles, estates and country houses next to history prints and images of archaeological finds, water engineering works, graves and landscapes. These pieces show how the Netherlands changes and how the spatial interest is recorded in drawings and prints. The collection is an inexhaustible source for research on the development of Dutch landscape.

The Memory of the Netherlands

In the UBL one of the largest collections of Dutch topographical prints and drawings is kept. Normally, topographic-historical atlases are collected in regional or municipal archives and concentrate on a specific town or region. The collection of Leiden University is one of the few in the Netherlands in which the whole country is represented. Recently this collection is digitally accessible via The Memory of the Netherlands.

The collection Topography of the Netherlands on the Memory consists of almost 14.000 prints and drawings. The larger part is collected by Johannes Tiberius Bodel Nijenhuis (1797-1872). He studied law at Leiden University where he received his doctoral degree in 1819. Two years later he became owner of publishing house Luchtmans. He spent a big part of his life on the collection of maps, topographical prints and drawings, history prints, portraits and geographical books. Bodel Nijenhuis bequeathed his collection to Leiden University Library. Beside this legacy of Bodel Nijenhuis, about 2.000 prints and drawings of the Leiden Print Room collection are added to this digital collection.

Further reading

• Maps and atlases in our special collections
• A description of the Bodel Nijenhuis collection at Leiden University
• Maps and atlases in our Snapshots (what are Snapshots?)

From the exhibitions agenda

• Summer 2012 (dates and title not confirmed yet): 15th century Italian drawings and technical research in materials.