Postcard Burgerweeshuis Amsterdam korfbal 1904 AHM 1972

Colour postcard published by the Amsterdams Historisch Museum in 1972, the image a colourised reproduction of an original postcard from 1904 showing the boys' courtyard of the Burgerweeshuis on the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam, with orphaned children playing korfbal. The caption on the image reads Amsterdam, Burgerweeshuis, Korfbal Jongens. The reverse carries the reference AHM. A 14315 with the inscription edition and colour-correction Amsterdams Historisch Museum, copyright 1972, and the bilingual caption korfbal op de jongensbinnenplaats van het burgerweeshuis, 1904 together with the English translation in which the term basketball is used for what is in fact korfbal, a typically Dutch sport. The card is in very good condition.

The Burgerweeshuis on the Kalverstraat housed from 1580 onwards the orphans of Amsterdam's burghers in the former Saint Lucia Convent and remained in use as an orphanage until 1960; in 1975 the Amsterdams Historisch Museum took up residence in the complex, three years after this card was issued. The black-and-red two-coloured uniforms of the orphans, red on the left and black on the right after the city's coat of arms, are clearly visible on both the boys in suits and the girls in skirts with white aprons and caps. The photograph captures a progressive moment in Dutch education: korfbal had been introduced in the Netherlands in 1902 by the schoolteacher Nico Broekhuysen as a mixed sport in which boys and girls play together, and its introduction on the Burgerweeshuis boys' courtyard was part of an innovative pedagogical line led by headmaster Jan Stam, despite the otherwise strictly separated upbringing of boys and girls within the institution. The man on the right of the image throwing the ball is most probably Stam or a physical education teacher. The photograph thus belongs to the earliest visual documentation of korfbal as a sport.