Archive
After the Bijloke Museum, the city antiquarian museum, closed its doors in 2005, STAM inherited its archive, collection, and library. This material provides insight into the functioning of the predecessors of STAM and into the history of the museum collection.
Minutes Museum Commission (1819-1969)
Until 1884, the antiquarian museum fell under the responsibility of the municipal heritage commission, later known as the Municipal Commission for Monuments and Urban Landscapes (Stedelijke Commissie van/voor Monumenten en Stadsgezichten (SCMS)). During this period, decisions concerning the museum were recorded in the commission’s minute books, which are preserved at the Ghent City Archives (Archief Gent). Conservator Alfons Werveke had all passages relating to the museum and its collection copied and compiled into registers for the museum’s own archive.
From 1884 onwards, the antiquarian museum had its own commission. The minutes of its meetings were likewise recorded in registers until 1969.
The minute books have been digitised and can be consulted here:
Kopijen van documenten uit archief van de lokale Commissie voor monumenten (1819-1885)
Procès-verbaux des séances de la Commission (31.10.1884 - 20.4.1897)
Procès-verbaux des séances de la Commission (29.12.1897 - 25.3.1939)
The minutes from the period 1947–1969 can be consulted at the STAM.
Acquisition Registers Museum Collection (1833-1958)
Only after the appointment of Alfons Van Werveke as museum conservator in 1899 did the museum begin keeping acquisition registers. In these registers, earlier staff recorded purchases for the museum collection, as well as donations, bequests, and objects placed on deposit.
The oldest registers provide an overview of acquisitions from the founding of the museum in 1833 until the early 1920s. Information relating to the period before 1899 was reconstructed on the basis of earlier references in commission reports and other sources. This explains why some object descriptions are vague and why the registers may be incomplete.
Van Werveke’s successor, Henri Nowé, began a new series of acquisition registers upon his appointment in 1930. These were maintained until his retirement in 1958.
Originally, the registers did not include inventory numbers. Only later, after the current numbering system was introduced, were inventory numbers added in the margins for some objects.
The registers also list objects that are no longer part of the museum collection. When an object was transferred to another institution, a reference was added, such as ‘archive’ (Ghent City Archives, now Archief Gent) or ‘F’ (Folklore Museum, now Huis van Alijn).
The registers dating from 1833 to 1936 have been digitised and can be consulted here:
Régistre des achats (1834-1920)
Régistre des dépôts confiés au Musée communal d'archéologie de Gand (1884-1910)
Comptes du Musée d'archéologie de la ville de Gand (18.6.1884 - 9.10.1916)
Registre d'entrée de la Société gantoise des amis de la médaille 12 décembre 1909
The registers dating from the period 1936–1958 are not available online, but can be consulted on site at STAM.
Museum Inventory (1875-1878)
In the course of the 19th century, the heritage commission commissioned handwritten inventories of the museum collection on several occasions. The most extensive inventory dates from 1875–1878. For the description of the objects, the museum commissioned M.A. Théodore Boll, a former associate of the Ghent architect and collector Louis Minard. His notes were later organised and compiled by the commission’s secretary, university librarian Ferdinand Vander Haeghen.
This inventory consists of four volumes: three with descriptions in French and one with descriptions in Dutch. Some objects are described in both languages. The numbering used in this catalogue does not correspond to the current inventory numbers, although these were sometimes added at a later stage. The accompanying index is preserved at Ghent University Library.
