Frederik Muller & Co

Frederik Muller & Co was an art auction house and art history publisher located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Established in the mid-nineteenth century as an antiquarian bookshop, the firm evolved into a pioneering venue for international art auctions in the Netherlands. Under the leadership of Anton Mensing from 1899, the company shifted its primary focus from rare books to fine and applied arts, eventually closing its antiquarian department in 1919 to concentrate solely on auctions. The firm played a significant role in the Dutch art market until its liquidation in 1963.

Frederik Muller, a noted Dutch bibliographer and antiquarian, founded the business as a rare bookshop in 1843, operating from a basement at Rokin 143 in Amsterdam. He held his first book auctions in 1847 and moved to Herengracht 329 in 1849. To dedicate more time to cataloguing, Muller formed a partnership with his employee Frederik Adama van Scheltema in 1876, and the firm became known as Frederik Muller & Co. Adama van Scheltema managed the book department while Muller focused on bibliographic projects. The business relocated to the Nieuwe Doelenstraat in 1880 due to space constraints. Following Muller's death in 1881, Adama van Scheltema continued the firm and hired Anton Mensing as an assistant in 1885. Mensing became a partner in 1892, and after Adama van Scheltema died in 1899, Mensing took full ownership. He expanded the business into art auctions, initiating the first international auction in the Netherlands for art, applied art, and historical scientific instruments. The antiquarian book side was dissolved in 1919. Mensing was assisted by specialists including Frits Lugt for paintings, drawings, and prints, W.A. van Buuren for applied arts, and Frederik Casparus Wieder for old books and atlases. Adolph Schluter served as auctioneer. Mensing's son Bernhard joined in 1923 and succeeded his father in 1929, ending the annual profit share paid to the Muller heirs for the use of the family name. The firm's final major auction took place in 1960, selling the Dreesmann Museum collection, and the company was liquidated in 1963.

The firm's scope evolved significantly over its history. Initially, it specialized in rare books, historical prints, pamphlets, and cartography. Frederik Muller himself was a dedicated collector of Dutch historical prints and maps, amassing over 25,000 prints and 3,000 books, which formed a core resource for the visualization of Dutch history. He also compiled extensive bibliographies and catalogues on geography, voyages, and cartography, publishing 13 such catalogues during his lifetime. Under Anton Mensing's leadership from 1899, the firm's scope broadened to encompass international fine art, applied art, and historical scientific instruments. The firm also maintained a role as an art history publisher, issuing detailed catalogues that were valued for their scholarly rigor.

Among the most notable holdings associated with the firm are the collections assembled by its founder. Frederik Muller's personal collection of over 25,000 historical and topographical prints of the Netherlands, along with portraits, drawings, and approximately 3,000 books, was purchased by the Dutch government in 1881 and is now preserved in the Rijksmuseum's Print Cabinet in Amsterdam. Another significant historical resource was the collection of Dutch historical pamphlets, which Muller and P.A. Tiele systematized and catalogued into a three-volume work published between 1858 and 1861, describing around 10,000 items. This pamphlet collection was later acquired by the University of Ghent. In the firm's later years as an auction house, the most notable sale was the 1960 auction of the Dreesmann Museum collection.

The firm occupied several locations in Amsterdam. It began in a basement at Rokin 143, moved to a house named De Vogelstruys at Herengracht 329 in 1849, and relocated to the Nieuwe Doelenstraat in 1880. As the art auctions grew in prominence under Anton Mensing, the initial auction venue at De Brakke Grond became too small. In 1905, the company purchased two adjoining properties in the Nieuwe Doelenstraat, numbered 16 and 18. Mensing commissioned the brothers Johan Godart and Adolf Daniël Nicolaas van Gendt to design an impressive new salesroom on the site, which featured views of the Amstel river and the Halvemaansbrug.

The firm was permanently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with its final and most prominent premises located at Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16-18. The company ceased operations following its liquidation in 1963, and much of its business archive was subsequently destroyed. Surviving records, including the collection of maps and cards associated with the firm, are now held in the Allard Pierson Repository. The name of the firm also endures in the Frederik Muller Akademie, an Amsterdam educational institution for book trade, publishing, and information science that later became part of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, as well as in the annual Frederik Muller Lecture organized by the Dutch Book Historical Society.