"Het Oosters Antiquarium", the Leiden antiquarian bookshop based at Nieuwe Rijn 2, Leiden, traces its history to 1848, when Evert Jan Brill (1812-1871) took over the Leiden bookselling and publishing firm of Luchtmans, which had been in business since 1683. The owner of "Het Oosters Antiquarium" was Mr Rijk Smitskamp. Born at The Hague in 1941, he was educated as a Classics scholar and joined Brill’s antiquarian bookshop in 1970. With his knowledge of Greek and especially Latin he developed into an expert bibliographer of the book production of European Orientalism before 1800. His main publications in this field are the three-volume Philologia Orientalis (1976-1991) and The Scaliger collection (1993), intended as sales catalogues but generally regarded as outstanding works of bibliographical reference.

In 1992 Brill decided to concentrate on publishing activities, selling their antiquarian bookshop to Smitskamp. He continued the shop on the same premises and much along the same lines as under its previous ownership. The ancient building served as a meeting point for Orientalists and book lovers. Unable to find a successor, Smitskamp closed the shop in 2006, thus ending a three-century-old tradition of bookselling in the field of Oriental Studies.