The fact that the [Musée du Louvre] existed at all was a consequence of the Revolution, which had nationalised the property of the Church and religious establishments, and of Napoleon's campaigns, which swept the artistic treasures of Europe into the booty-wagons of the conquerors. ... But these acquisitions had to be legitimised and justified, and this was achieved by emphasising the educational purpose of the Museum. To begin with the paintings were arranged according to what were known as 'Schools' ... as in 'the [Dutch] school' or the 'French school'. ... Each work was given an explanatory text, which gave information about the artist and the subject. This was an entirely new procedure. No previous museum had attempted to present and interpret its picture in this way, because it was assumed that all visitors were well informed ... and because it was felt that the impression a painting made .... was the most important thing about it. Another innovation was to prepare and put on sale a cheap catalogue and guide which helped members of the public to find their way around the Museum ... it was to be a 'people's museum', which everyone was entitled to visit as a right and without charge ... [Hudson p41 - 42]
Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden
Incorporated a large personal collection of antiquities and curiosities given by the Dutch nation by the diplomat, traveller and geographer P.F.B. von Siebold. 'Most of the collections [at Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Dresden, and Paris as well as Leiden] too were arranged according to place of origin. Insofar as this arrangement was systematically justified, the rationale was established by Siebold, whose scheme for a museum of modern 'curiosities' (supplementing long-standing European collections of classical and national antiquities) set a precedent for ethnographical museums founded in mid-century. Following Siebold's example, the Leiden collection was arranged according to what were considered racial or cultural groupings - a method which, according to Siebold, gave the best impression of a 'people's relative progress', 'the condition of their arts', and the nature of past exchanges with other peoples. ... Siebold's scheme came to be known to Pitt Rivers and others as 'the geographical system' but in Siebold's hands, it was less an organizational tool than a means of reconstructing man's past ... [Chapman, 1985: 24]