In 1778 the Bataviaasch Genootschap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen or Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences was established in Batavia, now Jakarta. The exclusively male Board of Directors, was selected from among the officials of the colonial government and the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC). Ninety years later, in 1868, the Society opened the Batavia Museum to visitors by appointment only. The historian Katharine McGregor observes that it is unclear whether Indonesians had access to the museum or if access was reserved exclusively to Europeans. The museum had more or less the same function as its colonial counterparts in the Netherlands: to showcase the riches of the colony.
