On the In-Betweenness of the Paintings of Jean Baptiste Vanmour (1671–1737) at the Riksmuseum Mirjam Shatanawi Tis essay considers how the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands’ premier na- tional museum, conceptualized and constructed ‘Islam’ through collecting, interpreting, and displaying a group of paintings made in the workshop of the Flemish-French painter Jean Baptiste Vanmour (1671–1737). 1 Vanmour is best known for his portrayal of scenes in the Ottoman Empire. For much of the nineteenth century, the paintings were part of the collection of the Royal Cabinet of Curiosities in Te Hague. When the Cabinet was dissolved in 1883, most of its collection was divided by classifying objects either as ‘art’ and ‘Eu- ropean’ (to be transferred to the Netherlands Museum for History and Art, which later merged with the Rijksmuseum) or ‘ethnology’ and ‘non-European’ (transferred to the Museum of Ethnology in Leiden). Using a biographical ap- proach, I trace the trajectories of a number of the Islamic objects from the for- mer Royal Cabinet collection, including the Vanmour paintings. I argue that because of the transcultural nature of these Islamic objects, they were subject to a certain in-betweenness: an elusiveness which allowed them to defy cate- gorization according to cultures and museum disciplines. During the trans- fer in 1883, the Vanmour paintings were classifed as ethnographic material and sent to the Museum of Ethnology, but eventually they were requisitioned by the Rijksmuseum. My analysis shows how, at the Rijksmuseum, the tran- scultural nature of the paintings was overlooked, thus favouring Eurocentric 1 T a a a a Fa Ia A: Ca D- a Q Ia, (a) a D Ra C (NWO). I a a Ja H a Ba N R’ aa a a a a a- a. Ja H a E S Naa a a a.