Hendrik Engel's Alphabetical List Dutch Zoological Cabinets ... - DWC

Preface
i
The basis of the present publication is H. Engel's well-known "Alphabetical
list of Dutch zoological cabinets and menageries" published almost fifty
years ago in the Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde XXVII, 1939, p. 247-346. Engel
soon started to collect material for a second edition of his list. His death
in 1981, prevented the realization of this plan. Mrs. M. Engel-Ledeboer presented
me with her late husband's manuscript and notes. Together with drs.
A.P.M. Sanders and Miss J.P.F. van der Veer we completed Engel's work. The
second edition of his invaluable list is essentially based on data brought
together by Engel. We prepared them for the printer and supplemented them
with easily accessible information from a number of municipal archives (esp.
Amsterdam, Haarlem, Dordrecht, Rotterdam, Delft, Utrecht and Zutphen) and
from the Artis-Library (Amsterdam) and the Biohistorical Institute
(Utrecht).
Although the number of entries has been augmented by more than SO%, the new
list still does not give an exhaustive survey of the Dutch zoological collectors.
Only for the period before 1800 a certain degree of completeness
can be claimed. Occasionally one can perhaps speak of over-completeness.
Even if there was only slight evidence that a certain cabinet contained zoological
material, it got a place in the list. For the 19th and 20th centuries
we could not be but selective. In this case completeness would have resulted
in a list of inordinate length. Therefore only the major collectors
have been included,
Engel's list contains a tremendous lot of information both on the cabinets
and their owners. The information is arranged according to the following
scheme: name; dates of birth and death; profession; data on the nature of
the collection, with, if available, supplementary information on drawings,
instruments, books, etc.; survey of the sources, first general books of reference,
then more specific publications.
Engel's list is nothing more but nothing less than a basic tool for further
historical research. It has already proved its use for two recently finished
master theses (resp. Mr. Jaap van der Veen's study on seventeenth-century
collections in Amsterdam and Miss lhea Nederveen's prosopography of collectors
residing in The Hague). We hope that others will follow their example
and contribute to the exploration of a very interesting, but neglected part
of Dutch cultural and scientific history.
Pieter Smit