Teylers Museum was founded in 1784 and soon thereafter became one of the most important centres of Dutch science. The Museum’s first director, Martinus van Marum, famously had the world’s largest electrostatic generator built and set up in Haarlem. This subsequently became the most prominent item in the Museum’s world-class, publicly accessible, and constantly growing collections. These comprised scientific instruments, mineralogical and palaeontological specimens, prints, drawings, paintings, and coins. Van Marum’s successors continued to uphold the institution’s prestige and use the collections for research purposes, while it was increasingly perceived as an art museum by the public. In the early twentieth century, the Nobel Prize laureate Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was appointed head of the scientific instrument collection and conducted experiments on the Museum’s premises. Showcasing Science: A History of Teylers Museum in the Nineteenth Century charts the history of Teylers Museum from its inception until Lorentz’ tenure. From the vantage point of the Museum’s scientific instrument collection, this book gives an analysis of the changing public role of Teylers Museum over the course of the nineteenth century.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- I Teylers at the Paris Electrical Exhibition
- II Teylers Museum
- III Museums and Popular Science
- IV Structure and Intended Readership of the Book
- 2. The Birth of a Musaeum
- I The Museum’s Pre-History
- Martinus van Marum and the Beginning of the Age of Museums
- Martinus van Marum’s Formative Years and The Holland Society of Sciences
- Pieter Teyler van der Hulst
- The Contents of Pieter Teyler’s Last Will and Testament
- Contextualising the Will: Mennonite Governors in Haarlem
- Teyler’s Choice of “Arts and Sciences”
- II The Establishment of Teylers Museum
- A Financial Setback
- The Teyler Foundation’s First Trustees
- The Appointment of a Kastelein
- The Foundation’s Buildings
- The Haarlem Drawing Academy
- Teylers Learned Societies
- Prize Essay Competitions
- Pieter Teyler’s Prints and Drawings
- Birth of a Musaeum
- The Design of the Oval Room
- Ideas for the Oval Room
- Van Marum is Appointed Director of Teylers Museum
- Teylers Museum and the Public
- Musaeum or Museum
- 3. Van Marum – Empiricism and Empire
- I Van Marum’s Work at Teylers Museum
- Van der Vinne Resigns
- Experiments with the Cuthbertson Electrostatic Generator
- Van Marum Generates Attention
- From Physics to Chemistry
- A Financial Windfall
- The Addition of a Laboratory
- Van Marum’s Acquisition Plans
- Amateurs and Professionals
- London and the Aftermath
- Van Marum’s Practical Appliances
- Van Marum and the Earth Sciences
- French Occupation
- Cuvier and the Mosasaur
- Homo Diluvii Testis, Lying Stones, and Ohio
- A Matter of Faith
- Aesthetic Value
- Van Marum’s Dispute with the Trustees
- II Van Marum’s “Philosophy of Science”
- Van Marum’s Take on Kant
- A Matter of Belief
- Relying on Experiments
- The Practical Turn
- Van Marum’s Lectures During the French Occupation
- A Summary of Van Marum’s Ideals
- III Open All Hours: Public Accessibility of Teylers Museum 1780-1840
- Tourism Emerges
- Selection of Visitors?
- Early Travel Reports of Teylers Museum
- Teylers Museum as “Testimony to the History of Physics”
- IV The Forgotten Art
- No Great Connoisseur of Pictures
- Christina of Sweden’s Collection of Drawings
- Changing Definitions of “Art”
- Paintings by Contemporary Artists
- 4. Van der Willigen – Precision and the Discipline of Physics
- I An Unexpected Guessing Game (Intro)
- II Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen (I): Early Years
- A New Methodology
- The Athenaeum in Deventer
- Amateurs, Specialists, and True Physics
- III The Art of Presenting
- The Rise of Public Art Exhibitions
- The First Art Gallery, a Permanent Exhibition?
- The More Visitors, the More Exclusive?
- IV Changing Definition of Museums
- From Scholarly Musaeum to Educational Museum
- The Great Exhibition, “Albertopolis”, and the South Kensington Museum
- The Public Museum in Support of Public Mores
- Prince Albert and the History of Art
- London to Haarlem
- V Jacob Gijsbertus Samuël van Breda at Teylers Museum
- Mid-Century Dutch Liberalism
- Some Critics of Official Dutch Museum Policy
- Jacob Gijsbertus Samuël van Breda
- Van Breda, Logeman, Winkler
- Different Approaches to Collecting
- The Rhenish Mineral-Office Krantz
- “Monuments of Science”
- VI Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen (II): Curator in Haarlem
- On the Job
- Van der Willigen’s Work in Haarlem
- Public Lectures and the Centennial in Philadelphia
- The Special Loan Collection at South Kensington
- Febris Rheumatica Articularis
- 5. Lorentz – Function Follows Form and Theory Leads to Experiment
- I Themes of the Chapter
- II A New Type of Museum
- New Government Policy in the 1870s
- The New Annex to Teylers Museum
- Guards at Teylers Museum
- Teylers’ New Annex and the Rijksmuseum
- III T.C. Winkler and E. van der Ven
- Tiberius Cornelis Winkler
- Elisa van der Ven
- IV Function Follows Form
- Moving House
- Function Follows Form
- The Birth of a Museum of the History of Science
- Science Museums and Museums of the History of Science
- V Lorentz: A Theoretician as Curator
- A Revered Theoretical Physicist
- Much to Offer
- Refurbishment of the Laboratory and Subsequent Research
- “The Isolation of Haarlem”
- The Museum Next Door
- 6. Conclusion
- I Summary
- II Musaeum or Museum?
- III The Changing Status of the Scientific Instrument Collection
- Appendix
- Acknowledgements
- Archives
- Bibliography
- Index
- List of Illustrations
- Figure 1 The electrostatic generator on display at the Paris Electrical Exhibition in 1881
- Figure 2 Martinus van Marum (1750-1837), painted by Charles Howard Hodges in 1826
- Figure 3 Group portrait of the trustees of the Teyler Foundation and the architect Leendert Viervant in 1786
- Figure 4 A painting of the Oval Room by Wybrand Hendriks, c. 1810
- Figure 5 The electrostatic generator as depicted in Van Marum’s “Description” of 1787
- Figure 6 The First Art Gallery depicted by Johan Conrad Greive, 1862
- Figure 7 The Oval Room depicted by Johan Conrad Greive, 1862
- Figure 8 Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen (1822-1878), c. 1860
- Figure 9 The entrance to Teylers Museum after 1885
- Figure 10 One of the rooms for palaeontological and mineralogical collections in the new annex to Teylers Museum after 1885
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