Editing
In 2001 it was decided to edit the archive for the benefit of the Rijksmuseum's impending renovation and restoration. For both the inventory and the conservation and paper restoration of the archive, the Government Buildings Agency provided funds. The archive was already housed at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) and was part of the Cuypers archive. As part of the Cuypers inventory project, the obvious course of action was to describe the Rijksmuseum archive as one of Cuypers' top projects in a separate inventory, like that of Kasteel De Haar, which preceded this inventory, and to give the packages their own code, namely RYKS.

Written pieces
The size of the written pieces is approximately five linear meters. The written documents allowed themselves to be divided by the editors into: Series of incoming and outgoing letters, Periodic reports, Documents concerning the organization, Financial documents, Documents concerning the construction and maintenance, concerning the detailing and concerning the furniture, Documents concerning the State Normal School in the Rijksmuseum, Documents concerning the technical facilities, concerning the building fragments, concerning the extensions of the Rijksmuseum, concerning the park and finally Documents concerning other activities of Cuypers related to the Rijksmuseum and Documents concerning festivities and official occasions in the Rijksmuseum. Three of these categories were further classified. The pieces within the categories were arranged chronologically.
The written pieces reflect Cuypers' working practice. The correspondence, reports and financial documents document Cuypers' own business practices. The file-like nature of the pieces documenting the construction and layout of the entire complex underscores Cuypers' coordinating role in implementing his design. When Cuypers was appointed architect, he was also empowered to draw up specifications for construction and call for tenders. Notices of tenders, specifications, tenders and the execution of the work with correspondence, weekly reports and financial statements complete the files.
Together with the drawings, the files provide a good insight into the entire construction process. In addition to Cuypers' role as "manager," it is striking that Cuypers did business with a large number of (also foreign) companies, contractors, suppliers, craftsmen and artists. The documents show that Cuypers was particularly oriented toward Germany, Belgium, France and Great Britain. His network can be called impressive.

Drawings
While editing the drawings by Fons Asselbergs, the varying level of description of three groups of drawings stood out. A first series of approximately six hundred drawings is provided with a contemporary drawing number, a description per drawing and additional information regarding dating, supervisor and scale. In a second group of drawings, which is known as: 'Supplementary List of Original Drawings,' the drawings are still described per drawing, but the descriptions are extremely brief or incorrect. The drawings do not have a contemporary drawing number, but rather a later assigned ascending number. The order of the drawings seems arbitrary. Finally, there is a "bulk" of drawings without numbers, with only a few folders bearing extremely brief collection descriptions, the rest not described at all.

First series of drawings
The character of the first series was quickly apparent. It was an incomplete series of drawings, bearing drawing numbers assigned to them in Cuypers' time. Out of respect for the old order, it was obvious to leave this series intact and to reconstruct and complete it where possible. The series concerned mainly working and execution drawings, but also included a number of design drawings. On the basis of the working and construction drawings, the Rijksmuseum and the director's residence were built up layer by layer, as it were. This therefore implies more or less a chronological order of the drawings. On the design drawings, particularly Cuypers' signature, the minister's approval and the manner of drawing are indicative of a different status of the drawing than that of a working drawing.
It is likely that the drawings were described by Asselbergs using a list of drawings during the earlier editing. The descriptions of the drawings often included the name of the supervisor and the date of dispatch of the drawing. However, the original list was not found in the archives. Incidentally, the names of the superintendents do appear in the diaries (application number RYKSd15). These even list per person per part of the day who worked on which drawing.
The large size of the drawings is remarkable. This can be explained by the fact that the drawings were produced and annotated on sheets of enormous size on the building site itself, in the director's office and the construction sheds. Thus, they did not have to be shipped.
In editing this series of drawings, the order of successive drawing numbers was maintained. The number on the drawing became the application number. The description of the drawing includes explanatory notes indicating the medium and drawing material used, any text on the drawing, references to other drawings, signatures, signature, dating, scale and stamps. This information is taken from the drawing. The information in square brackets concerns notes made during a previous survey, such as date of dispatch, the name of the supervisor responsible, and scale.

Second group of drawings
The list on which the second group of drawings was described had the character of a placement list. These drawings probably rested in various places in the Rijksmuseum and, having been collected, were given a consecutive numbering (from 650-1101). The character of this group of drawings was very diverse and all drawings were scattered. For example, there were found competition designs by Cuypers from 1863 and 1875 and series with designs by Eberson. Also in this group were drawings by Cuypers from 1876 and 1877, with which he successfully convinced the Minister of the Interior to agree to a different variant than the jury had preferred. Working drawings were found, which actually seemed to belong in the first series of drawings and, finally, this second group contained (detail) drawings concerning the interior, the furnishings, the decoration of the Rijksmuseum and the construction of the park.
The descriptions of the drawings were extremely brief, the order was arbitrary and sometimes the drawings were improperly stored or missing. Consequently, this phase of editing was time-consuming and complex.


Contest designs
First of all, an attempt was made to isolate from the second group the drawings documenting the contest designs. Through research in literature and publications of winning designs, the competition entries, as found in the archives, were reconstructed as follows: Cuypers' 1863 competition design, Eberson's 1866 design commissioned by the committee "in preparation for the foundation of an Art Museum," Cuypers' 1875 competition design, Eberson's 1875 competition design.
The 1863 entries were exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts at the time, and after the exhibition, the plans went back to the submitters. Cuypers had submitted two plans in 1863: plan A and plan B. The jury preferred plan A. Only two presentation drawings of this plan and six preliminary designs were found in the archives. Six presentation drawings of plan B were found. The winning design by father and son Lange and plan A by Cuypers were used, successively, by Godefroy and later by Eberson as the basis for a new design. This is probably the reason that Cuypers' presentation drawings of plan A do not reside in his own archives.
A series by Eberson's hand was also found in the Cuypers archive. This did not appear to be the first submission from 1863. Nor was it Eberson's first adaptation of Lange and Cuypers' winning 1864 designs. In fact, both series are in the Royal Archives in The Hague. Because of a fire at Museum Boymans in Rotterdam at the time, Eberson was again asked to design a fireproof building. Of this last design from 1866, drawings, an estimate and a calculation of the wall area were found in the archives. The reason why this series does rest in these archives cannot be traced.
Finally, the 1875 competition entries of Cuypers and Eberson were found almost complete.
The arrangement in the inventory of the competition entries is chronological: Cuypers' competition design of 1863 (1), Eberson's design commissioned by the committee 'to prepare the foundation of an Art Museum' of 1866 (2), Cuypers' competition design of 1875 (3), Eberson's competition design of 1875 (4).
In addition to the approximately eighty drawings, a small number of written pieces and photographs of drawings have also been described.
The competition entries can be considered retro-acta of the archival section documenting the construction of the Rijksmuseum. It was therefore decided to describe these archival materials in a separate inventory, which precedes the inventory of the Rijksmuseum's construction archives, while offering both inventories as one.

Design drawings
Following the competition designs, an attempt was made to lift the design drawings from the second group in order to reconstruct the design process. In this reconstruction, a particularly good clue was the mention of the missive to which the drawing belonged. After all, the presence of a missive marked the moments, when Cuypers submitted his (partial) designs to the minister.
At this stage of the processing, it was obvious to organize the drawings according to stages in the design and construction process (competition designs, design drawings, detail drawings and working drawings). In this case, however, the first set of drawings should also have been broken up, because that set also contained drawings that belonged to the missives. This was not chosen: the first series, in order of the numbers issued by Cuypers, was left intact. However, the list of missives with the accompanying drawings did provide some insight into the design process. Therefore, a list of the missive numbers and the corresponding drawings was added to the inventory as an appendix (see Appendix 7).
The assumption that the second group probably contained missing drawings from the first series proved untenable.

Third group of drawings
In addition to drawings from the first and second groups described above, there was a third group of drawings. These drawings were described only per packing unit or not at all. Nor were these drawings filmed in the past.
In this group were found fine designs for decorative painting and drawings from Berlin, Vienna and London museums, which Cuypers probably used for study or inspiration. Furthermore, these drawings mainly document the later expansions and renovations of the museum and the installation of technical facilities, such as heating, ventilation and water pipes.

Arrangement of the drawings
In summary, the distinction between the drawings from the first series on the one hand and the drawings from the second and third groups on the other hand lies in having or not having a contemporary drawing number. Therefore, the drawings from the first series with a contemporary drawing number are placed in a separate section: 'Drawings with original drawing number'. For the drawings from the second group, with the exception of the competition entries, and the drawings from the third group, a new arrangement had to be developed. These drawings can now be found under the heading 'Drawings without original drawing number' and are categorized into: Situation drawings (A), Presentation and design drawings (floor plans, cross-sections and facades) (B), Working drawings (C), Detail drawings (D), Technical installation drawings (E), Drawings of subsequent alterations and extensions (F). For most of these categories a further subdivision into museum building, director's residence and possibly parkland was sufficient. Only the detailed drawings of the museum building required further subdivision, namely: 'Exterior' and 'Interior and furniture'. If possible, the drawings of the interior and furniture were classified in the subcategory 'Arranged by space'. The remaining drawings were placed in the subcategory "Arranged by typology.
Finally, the 'Documentation' section described the drawings that Cuypers collected for study purposes and/or for inspiration.

Pretty, prettier, prettiest......
Many drawings have been given the addition (beautiful) by the editors. It is obvious that the competition designs, with which the architects had to impress and/or convince the juries, are very beautiful. The altered design drawings with which Cuypers put the king on a different track are also beautiful, as are the many decorative drawings. However, the far-reaching detailing on a number of working drawings is also impressive.
The subjective nature of this addition is perhaps misplaced and certainly contradictory to our efforts to describe this archive as objectively as possible. Nevertheless, we felt it appropriate to add this panegyric. It is a tribute to the craftsmanship of Cuypers and can be seen as a helping hand to those users who make the archive known to a wider public at exhibitions and other presentations. Finally, in addition to being a collection of source material, the archive is also a museum collection of great aesthetic value. Already during earlier editing, Asselbergs assigned a veiled "fine" to drawings by stamping special drawings on the back and having the selected drawings photographed.

Conservation and restoration of the drawings
During the inventory project, all drawings were seen and, if necessary, treated by paper conservator Peter Kipp. The general condition of the drawings was reasonably good. To preserve the drawings, all drawings were salvaged with a manageable size flat. That is, the rolled drawings were unrolled and the folded drawings, if possible, unfolded. It was then assessed whether the condition of the paper needed or could be improved. In assessing this, the (art) historical and administrative value of the drawing played a decisive role. For example, a very detailed drawing of an ornament received more care than a working drawing drawn by hand.
Over time, the paper underwent aging, to which the different types of paper reacted to a greater or lesser extent. The most common problems were: crumbling of the paper (cause: aging), tearing of the paper (cause: frequent use) and finally the paper was sometimes very soiled (cause: poor storage conditions).
The drawings were treated in different ways. The surface of the (locally) very soiled drawings was dry cleaned. Large tears, which could further damage the drawing in the future, were repaired. If further tearing could be prevented, complex cracks were fixed (secured). Where sharp folds increased the risk of future tearing, the folds were flattened. Drawings whose paper is very outdated and large drawings (giant sheets) that could not be stored in common portfolios were given a melinex cover. These sleeves provide complete protection for the drawing. The paper is held in place in these sleeves, eliminating the need for tear repair.

Photographs and glass negatives.
The photographs were already described and packaged by Loes van Harrevelt in 2000. She described the photographs at the time in a standard form. The descriptions have now been edited so that they could be included in this inventory.
In the past, the glass negatives were in the Collection of Archive Negatives and Slides (CAND) under the code CUYX. The number of glass negatives is very small; probably not all the image material was transferred to the NAI at the time. The Rijksmuseum itself maintains a large collection of photographs and glass negatives. The glass negatives about the Rijksmuseum that are in the archive of the Kunstwerkplaats in Roermond (code CUCO) are not described in this inventory, by the way. Archival principles prevented dismantling the Kunstwerkplaats archive.
The photographs and glass negatives could be divided into the categories Exterior, Interior and Details. This classification attempted to match the classification of the drawings as closely as possible. The visual material of the sculpture, which is categorized under Details, is by far the most numerous and required further classification into: (photographs of) Design drawings (for the benefit of sculpture), Models and Realized sculpture.
The descriptions of the material consist of the following parts: a substantive description of the image in the photograph, with, if possible, an indication of the dating between square brackets: a unique application number per photograph (with prefix ph) and per glass negative (with prefix n): the notes include, where known, the process by which the print was made, the name of the photographer with location, relevant texts, numbers and stamps on the material, references to other photographs, and any comments by the describer; sometimes reference is made to drawings in the archives.
The photographs can be consulted in the reading room; the glass negatives, due to their fragility, are in principle not.