Our collections: a world of stories
The collections of MAP - Museums At the Park (formerly the Stedelijke Musea, or City Museums) are as varied as the city itself. For over 150 years, the museums and the Royal Antiquarian Society of the Land of Waas (KOKW) have been collecting art, objects and documents that together form the memory of Sint-Niklaas. Today, these collections tell stories not only about the past, but also about craftsmanship, creativity and the many faces of the Waasland region. The MAP collection is made up of seven sub-collections:
Cartography: a window on the world
The cartography collection, built up by the Jan Van Raemdonck Foundation (KOKW), is one of MAP's real highlights. With maps, atlases and iconic globes - including Mercator's unique pair of globes - you can discover how people, throughout the centuries, viewed, mapped and tried to understand the world. From centuries-old masterpieces to modern mapping techniques, it's a journey through five centuries of thinking, measuring and orientation.
Fine Arts: from Waasland classics to contemporary voices
The fine arts collection rests on two main pillars: the Verstraeten collection (19th-century painting, 80 objects) and the MathysVanneste collection (paintings, furniture and applied arts, 320 objects). Over the decades, the museum has also built up an extensive collection of art by artists from the Waasland region, including paintings, graphic art and, to a lesser extent, sculpture, glass art and photography.
People & the Body
The 'People and the Body' collection comprises 3,933 objects related to personal care and the hairdressing profession. The collection has grown through donations and acquisitions over the years. It is no longer being expanded and is instead being carefully streamlined.
Graphic Art & Bookplates
Sint-Niklaas has a long tradition in graphic art, reflected in its rich collection of prints and bookplates (ex libris). The International Bookplate Centre was founded in 1975 but closed in 2019. Its collection is still managed by MAP and comprises around 170,000 bookplates, along with a small library, an archive and printing equipment.
Den Brei: industrial mastery
The non-profit organisation Breimuseum (Knitting Museum) was founded in 1991 with the aim of preserving the industrial heritage of Sint-Niklaas's knitting industry. Ownership of the Brei-atelier collection was fully transferred to the City of Sint-Niklaas in 2007. The core of the collection consists of around forty still-working knitting machines, a textile lab and a garment-making workshop, along with an accompanying archive.
Boudelo
The Boudelo collection consists of archaeological material excavated in the 20th century in Klein-Sinaai, on the site of the former Boudelo Abbey (1200-1584). Its management has been transferred to Erfpunt, the Waasland expertise centre for built heritage.
Folk Culture: everyday life in objects
Finally, MAP holds a varied collection of folk-culture objects reflecting everyday life in Sint-Niklaas and the Waasland region. It is by far MAP's most diverse collection, built up over the decades through donations. There was never really a clear collecting policy behind it; the objects are mostly of a folk-culture nature (clothing, household items, religious objects, ceramics, and so on).