Science at court: the eighteenth-century cabinet of scientific instruments and models of the Dutch stadholders

Summary

Prince William IV of Orange-Nassau (1711–1751) and his son William V (1748–1806) were the last stadholders to reign in the Dutch Republic. They owned a cabinet of mathematical, optical and physical instruments and of mechanical and other models. These were included with the library collection and after 1766 were housed, together with the other collections (paintings, medals and antiquities, natural objects and rarities), in a building opposite the stadholder's quarter in The Hague. There was also an astronomical observatory.

In 1795, the stadholder's cabinet fell victim to the French ‘scientific conquest’ and was transported to Paris. The instruments and models probably shared the fate of the seized cabinets of the émigrés, being merged into the newly founded Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, the École Polytechnique or some provincial school or college.