Posted by Henri M on July 17, 2012, 1:15 pm, in reply to "Re: foundations"
The gifts are very diverse. At almost every visit, be it a State Visit, an official visit, a working visit or even a private visit, gifts are offered. This varies from a commemorative book to a nice crystal vase, from a set of silver items to a ring with "dust from space" (a Dutch astronaut gave it). During royal weddings gigantic loads of gifts are delivered at the palace, varying from a complete dinner set for 100 people to an extended set of damast linen, from specially re-purchased historic items to newly created art sculptures. The amount is often unbelievable. And maybe also jewels, although it looks like the Dutch royals prefer less ostentatious gifts.
I think the two foundations were set up as result of the deaths of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard in 2004. A massive amount of never-ending items left the depôts of the royal residences, had to be classified, valued, catalogued, stored. There were four daughters who could inherit from Queen Juliana and six daughters who could inherit from Prince Bernhard. After all the dividing and distributing, still an immense amount of goods was left, amongst these surprisingly expensive and beautiful gold-, silver-, crystal- and porcelain ware, antique furniture, paintings, objets d'art and name these all. These were auctioned for the benefit of charities chosen by the four daughters.
I have the idea that by creating these two foundations, the problem "what to do when royal X or royal Y dies" is tackled. Everything is placed in the ownership of a Foundation and this means that as long as the Foundation exists, the (future) bearer of the Crown and/or his House has the usufruct and the pleasure of all these gifts.