University and student life

Prints, Drawings and Portraits · Photography

Claiming Coster

On 4 November 1901, a large crowd gathered on the Rapenburg for the unveiling of a memorial, mounted on the Academy Building of Leiden University. The memorial was erected in memory of Herman Coster. Who was he and why is commemorated at this very spot, at the heart of Leiden University?

Prints, Drawings and Portraits

Picturing all the talents of the jubilee

When Elisabeth Carolina van Dorp (1872-1945) defended her dissertation in 1903, a special print was made to commemorate the occasion. While this print fits in an older student tradition, it also shows that women were still very much the odd ones out in the male dominated student world.

Hitting the streets at the Dies Natalis

The rijjool as part of the Dies celebrations around 1900

Prints, Drawings and Portraits

More than a costume party. Costumes for the Leiden Student Pageant of 1910

Within the field of costume history, fancy dress can be a rather complicated and neglected category. Are we looking at ‘fake’ clothes or well-made imitations? Research can reveal some interesting facts about its production, its previous owners, and their motives for ordering these clothes.

Manuscripts, Archives and Letters

The early years of mathematics education at Leiden University (1575-1645)

Leiden University was one of the first universities in Europe to offer a practical mathematics course, taught in vernacular, parallel to a theoretical course. Why was this practical course taught and what did it teach students? The lecture notes of one of its first teachers can tell us a lot.

Prints, Drawings and Portraits

Leiden University’s third centenary and jubilee (1875)

The fifteenth of June 1875 was a pleasant and warm day. Some menacing clouds threatened to throw a spanner in the works, but luckily the rain never came. Fortunate for the crowds gathering in Leiden, as on this day, Leiden University celebrated its three hundredth anniversary.

Prints, Drawings and Portraits

Dogs in the library (1610). A team for utility and entertainment

Dogs were a much-loved subject in early modern prints. On the oldest depiction of the Leiden University Library, a print from 1610 after design by Jan Cornelisz Woudanus (ca. 1565-1615) two dogs are visible in the foreground, and not without purpose.

Manuscripts, Archives and Letters

Political propositions: Willem Bilderdijk’s legal dissertation

Many recognise Willem Bilderdijk as one of the greatest poets in Dutch literary history, but only few know that he was a rather famous lawyer, all thanks to his education in Leiden. Letters, lecture notes and other documents provide insight into his time as a law student at Leiden University.

Manuscripts, Archives and Letters

Poet Anna van der Aar de Sterke and her all-female literary society 'Die Erg Denkt Vaart Erg In ’T Hart'

Leiden University student Evi Dijcks added a new chapter to Dutch literary history when she discovered the earliest all-female literary society in the Dutch Republic, founded in 1782. The discovery shows: 18th-century women did not wait around for men to include them in their literary activities.