Amsterdam, Allard Piersonmuseum

The Allard Piersonmuseum, the home of the archaeological collection of the University of Amsterdam, is one of the nicest museums I know. I may be biased, though, because Amsterdam is my hometown. I cycle along the museum nearly every day and am a regular visitor.

One of its strengths is that it does not concentrate on Greek and Roman art, but also has a fine collection of objects from Egypt and smaller sets of objects from Cyprus and the ancient Near East. Yet, the visitor will notice that the main focus is on ancient Greek art, from the Mycenaean age to the Hellenistic period. This illustrates the history of archaeology as a discipline: initially, people collected art and admired Greece, but later, archaeology widened its scope and our sense of beauty changed.

The museum, founded in 1934, seventy-five years ago, is named after the university’s first professor of art history, Allard Pierson (1831-1896), but he has nothing to do with it. The museum was founded when a foundation of Dutch philhellenists bought the collection of a banker named Constant Lunsingh Scheurleer, and merged it with the private collection of deceased professor, who had bequeathed it to the university. Lunsingh Scheurleer’s son Theodoor was to become director of the museum. His successor Hemelrijk added many new objects, mostly Greek. In 1976, the museum moved to its present location on the Oude Turfmarkt: the former Dutch National Bank.

What are the main delights? It is hard to say, because the museum has only one object that is truly unique: the portrait of Artaxerxes III. It is the only portrait of an Achaemenid ruler that represents the great king as he really looked like – unlike the stereotypical official portraits. Nowhere on earth will you find something similar. I also like the large model of ancient Olympia, the Coptic phoenix, the Hellenistic war elephant, the early eighteenth-century (!) painting of Palmyra, and the small Oannes. Others may like the Etruscan art, the chariot from Cyprus, the statue of Aphrodite, or the bust of Tiberius Gemellus.

The museum is not very large. It takes just an afternoon to see most of it. Yet, the explanatory signs are good, the collection is representative of all Antiquity, and what the museum lacks in quantity, it compensates with quality. The exhibitions are usually very well-done. If I must mention a point of criticism, it is the bookshop. There are two types of writing for a larger audience: on the one hand, explaining scholarship and pulling the people up, and on the other hand, simplifying scholarship and bowing down. The bookshop has chosen the second option, and is, in my opinion, underestimating the capacity of the general audience.

In the museum’s attic is a nice collection of casts of ancient Greek sculpture, which is not open to the public, but can be visited on request.

This museum was visited in a/o 1984, 2009, 2014, 2017-2020.

58 pictures related to this museum

Etruscan temple, Model	Ostracon with graffito of Bes	Geometric pyxis	Urn in the shape of a hut
Tarentum, Relief of Scylla	Athribis, Ptolemaic relief of Hapy	Rhodes, Egyptian-style statuette	Athens, Coin with portrait of Athena
Artaxerxes III Ochus	Vechten, Fibula	Memphis, Figurine of Beset	Carthage, Slingstone from the siege of 146 BCE
Ptolemy IV Philopator as Hermes	Thebes, Box	Coin of the Jewish Rebels in Jerusalem	Sparta, Laconian bowl decorated with fish
Tarentum, Figurine of Bendis	Tarentum, Relief of a warrior	Phoenician-Etruscan dish	Modern model of a triere
Egyptian dromedary	Portrait, believed to be Tiberius Gemellus	Livia (Amsterdam)	Urartian bottle
Naucratis, Figurine of Bes as Roman officer	Athena and an owl	Reconstruction of the statue of Augustus from Primaporta	Portrait of a pharaoh of the Saite dynasty
Veii, Acroterion (water nymph?)	Memphis, Bottle in the shape of Bes	Thebes, Figurine of Europa	Tarentum, Griffin
Dancing Bes and Beset	Mascula, Tombstone of a baby	Tarentum, The Abduction of Persephone	Miletus, Oenochoe
War elephant	Portrait of an Iranian	Phoenix on a Coptic tombstone	Neo-Assyrian plaque of Oannes
Mithradates II	Aššur, Apotropaic plaque of a bird-apkallu	Phoenix on a Coptic relief	Olympia, Model
Sufetula, Roman oil lamp (women playing backgammon)	Dancing Bes	The pyramids (model)	Tarentum, A boy and his horse (Sarpedon painter)
Nijmegen, Fibula	Tarentum, Sherd with the Temple of Apollo	Tarentum, Two women playing ephredismos	The Amsterdam Caesar Codex
Corinth, Orientalizing jar with a lion, a sphinx, and a goose	Nijmegen, Disk fibula	Cherub on a Neo-Assyrian seal	Coptic Relief of St.George
Caere, Vase with Medea	Rhodes, Amphora in Phikelloura style