Maurits Muller Massis (1899-1992) was a book dealer with a market stall on the Waterlooplein and later on the Leidseplein in Amsterdam. Beside collections of objects as diverse as books, stamps, toy soldiers and porcelain, Muller Massis assembled a substantial collection of photography and photographic technology. In addition to early photographs such as daguerreotypes, salt prints, ambrotypes, tintypes, his collection focused particularly on the ways in which the photographic medium was popularised in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It includes many forms of vernacular photography such as cartes de visite, cabinet photographs, stereo photos, magic lantern slides, and albums. Partly, Muller Massis arranged his photographs typologically according to subject and genre, filling many albums (which he initially acquired empty) with the categories he created such as wedding portraits, children's portraits, royal houses, dogs, etc.

As he explained at the time of his presentation of his collection to the University of Leiden, what interested him about photography was the invention itself, the many possibilities for applying photography and the subjects of the photos. The loss of many interesting bits of information and objects was also a motive for him to assemble his photo collection.

After donating his collection 72-year-old Muller Massis put a stop to his activities as a photography collector, although he continued to collect postage stamps.