Collection of photographs and photographic materials originating from Stichting Het Oosters Instituut, Leiden (Oriental Institute Foundation, Leiden) and consisting of albumen prints, snap shots, postcards, photo albums and several other items. The collection mainly contains images from the Arab world, but also from Indonesia, Africa and Europe.



A printed inventory is available in Gavin (1983), who makes the following general observations, using the old shelfmarks: Visual materials in the Leiden Oriental Institute (hereafter ‘L/OI’) Library fall into three distinct categories:



1. Pictures related directly to the Library donated to the L/OI by Rudolph Said-Ruete on June II. 1937 (with subsequent additions as well). Stored for the most part in the Said-Ruete Library's large glass-fronted bookcase, these collections were copied and catalogued by the H[arvard] S[emitic] M[useum] in 1983. Their inventories have been designated with the prefix L/OI.SR.

(NOT IN LEIDEN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY)



2. Pictures found with property of The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, NINO). In some cases pictures properly belonging to the Oriental Institute's collections (L/OI) or those of the Said-Ruete Library (L/OI.SR) seem to have become confused with NINO holdings in the course of several moves as institutes changed buildings after World War II. Time did not permit the HSM to survey all NINO holdings carefully during the Summer of 1983 but two obvious instances of confusion were discovered. Item lists of those two collections have been appended to the (L/OI) inventory with the tentative designations: NINO 1 and NINO 2.

(EXCEPT FOR THE LAST TWO ITEMS NOT IN LEIDEN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY)



3. Pictures belonging to the Oriental Institute itself. In most cases much earlier than the donation of the Said-Ruete Library, these pictures are presently stored in a (six-drawer) cabinet beside the Said-Ruete bookcase. The photographs had been uncatalogued, so for the purposes of this inventory they were arranged in series. Retaining their provenance as they were found in envelopes, folders, etc., each series was assigned an alphabetical designation, and items within each series were numbered consecutively (e.g. Al, A2... B1, B2 ... etc.). Where items already had consecutive numbers, these were retained within the series. The designation L/OI was used as a collection title abbreviation, and should appear as a prefix to each series. According to Daniel van der Meulen (explaining his own 1926 signature on an envelope containing the 31 pictures catalogued here as L/OI.A.), consuls at the Royal Netherlands Legation in Jiddah would regularly send to Professor C. Snouck Hurgronje whatever photographs could be gathered as part of the effort to document sanitation conditions affecting East Indian Hajjis. The Albums: L/OI - J through N are albums, grouped by geographical area. Each area is assigned a series letter, then albums within that series are numbered consecutively. J1, J2 - Hejaz; K1, K2, K3 - Southern Arabia (Yemen); L1 to LS - Persia, architecture; M1, M2, M3 -Mesopotamia, Constantinople (few Europe), and Palestine; N1 to N4 - Egypt (N1 includes some Syria)