The Kern Institute is the Dutch national centre of expertise for South Asia and the Himalayan region. It also holds the Vogel Collection of some 10,000 images, many of which have to do with early 20th century archaeology in India and Pakistan.

The Kern Institute was founded by the Sanskritologist and archaeologist Prof. Jean Phillipe Vogel, a Dutchman who had a fruitful career in India with the Archaeological Survey of India from 1901 until 1913. He named the institute after Hendrik Kern who, from 1865, held the first chair of Sanskrit in the Netherlands, and became the founder of the study of Indian civilizations in Holland.

The Institute's 10,000 photographs of India collected by Vogel on his constant excursions through India, especially in northern India and Pakistan (he was based on Lahore for much of his career). A book based on the collection, A Vision of Splendour, by Gerda Theuns-de Boer was published in 2008. The author, an archaeological expert, is also manager of the photography collection at the Kern Institute.

• Netherlands