PPROCE (Pilot Project Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era)

PPROCE (Pilot Project Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era) is a joint project of the National Museum of World Cultures, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Expertise Centre of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies (ECR/NIOD), with the aim of developing a methodology for provenance research into collections with a colonial context. The project was realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Within this project, the steps were mapped out that are necessary for carrying out provenance research into colonial collections. This was done by means of a number of selected cases from Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

From the collection of the National Museum of World Cultures, 46 objects from Indonesia were examined, for which 33 resulted in provenance reports. The objects can be divided into four different categories:

- The first group (1 to 11) was selected, in consultation with the National of Museum of Indonesia, from the large collection that until 1883 was part of the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities (Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden).
- The second group (12 to 27) are objects that entered the NMVW as a result of colonial wars (in Banjarmasin, Aceh, Bali, and the War of Indonesian Independence). 
- The third group (28) concerns Buddha heads originally from the Borobudur.
- The fourth group (29 to 33) consists of objects collected by private collectors (Georg Tillmann, Martine Tonnet and Freek Kamma).