The collection includes original photographs and watercolours by Walter Spies, the famous German born painter, musician, photographer and Bali expert.

Walter Spies was born in Moscow 1895 and died 19 January 1942 on the sinking ship the ‘von Imhoff’, on its way to British India. Spies was active in Java from 1923 and in Bali from 1927 until his internment in May 1940 by the Dutch authorities, due to his German citizenship. The collection consists further of photographs, correspondence, manuscript and printed documentation in relation to Walter Spies and to Mrs Van Wessem curatorship at the Bali Museum in Denpasar.

The collection was registered in 1999 under the classmark Or. 25.188.