Teylers Museum is an art, natural history, and science museum in Haarlem, Netherlands. Established in 1778, Teylers Museum was founded as a centre for contemporary art and science. The historic centre of the museum is the neoclassical Oval Room (1784), which was built behind the house of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst (1702–1778), the so-called Fundatiehuis. Pieter Teyler was a wealthy cloth merchant and banker of Scottish descent, who bequeathed his fortune for the advancement of religion, art, and science. He was a Mennonite and follower of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Haarlem is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland and is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. Haarlem had a population of 159,556 in 2017. It is a 15-minute train ride from Amsterdam, and many residents commute to the country's capital for work.
History
Wybrand Hendriks, Inner courtyard of Teylers Foundation House, Haarlem, 1800. Collection Teylers Museum. Hendriks' painting shows that museum visitors used the Observatory to view the panorama of Haarlem and its surroundings.Reflecting telescope after Isaac Newton by William Herschel, built to order in 1790 and formerly used in the observatoryLeendert Viervant, Design for an observatory on the roof of the Oval Room of Teylers Museum, drawing, 498 × 374 mm.
The observatory was built on the suggestion of Jacobus Barnaart, one of the five initial directors of the Teylers Stichting, which was the foundation responsible for taking care of the inheritance of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst. Barnaart was an amateur scientist who had a great interest in astronomy and wanted to build a state-of-the-art astronomical observatory on the roof of the Oval Room. This proved to be a bad idea, because the roof was made of wood, which transfers too many vibrations to make reliable and precise observations. Hence a belvedère was built instead, a square tower with two doors in each wall.[1]
The Teylers Stichting is a Dutch foundation founded with the heritage of the Dutch 18th century cloth merchant and banker Pieter Teyler van der Hulst to support the people in need and encourage worship, science and art.
Pieter Teyler van der Hulst was a wealthy Dutch Mennonite merchant and banker, who died childless, leaving a legacy of two million florins to the pursuit of religion, arts and science in his hometown, that led to the formation of Teyler's Museum. This was not the value of his entire estate. He also founded Teylers Hofje in his name, and made important donations to individuals in the Mennonite community.
Though the observatory couldn't be used for precision measurements, it was still used for manual observations. The collection of the Teylers physical cabinet contains several telescopes and other devices that were used. Until 1817 the observatory also had a camera obscura, which was used for drawings of the view from the little tower.[2][3] Though they have not survived, the Teylers archives have evidence that Vincent Jansz van der Vinne was paid 86 guilders for painting the "walls and ceilings of the cupula".[3] That was not the only artwork that early stargazers met with when they climbed the stairs. On the rooftop of the first staircase a vase was installed that was delivered by Jan Woortman in 1781.[3] Though lost since, the vase can be seen in the painting of the courtyard of the Foundation house by Wybrand Hendriks. The vase was the trademark of Teyler, and is visible on the top of Van Marum's electrostatic generator as well.
The Oval Room in the Teylers Museum was the first part of the museum that was opened in 1784. It could be entered through the garden of the fundatiehuis, the former home of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst. The building has an oval shape built around its centerpiece, a mineralogical cabinet. The Oval Room consists of two floors; the ground floor with its display cabinets and a gallery of books that connects to the Teylers Library. On top of the room, on the roof, the astronomical observatory used to be a landmark that could be seen for miles along the river Spaarne. The gallery and observatory are longer accessible to the public, though the gallery can be seen from the ground floor.
Telescopes are optical instruments that make distant objects appear magnified by using an arrangement of lenses or curved mirrors and lenses, or various devices used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practical telescopes were refracting telescopes invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century, by using glass lenses. They found use in both terrestrial applications and astronomy.
Camera obscura, also referred to as pinhole image, is the natural optical phenomenon that occurs when an image of a scene at the other side of a screen is projected through a small hole in that screen as a reversed and inverted image on a surface opposite to the opening. The surroundings of the projected image have to be relatively dark for the image to be clear, so many historical camera obscura experiments were performed in dark rooms.
The observatory can be reached via a staircase from the Grote Herenkamer (large board room), which is located next to the Oval Room. That staircase leads the visitor to the lower roof, where a steep open air wooden staircase leads to the small room on top of the dome. For precision measurements, a new observatorium was built in the garden, that was later used as a studio by the later curator Jan van Borssum Buisman.
Jan Hendrik van Borssum Buisman, was a 20th-century painter from the Netherlands.
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Leiden Observatory is an astronomical observatory in the city of Leiden, the Netherlands. It was established by Leiden University in 1633, to house the quadrant of Rudolph Snellius, making it the oldest operating university observatory in the world, with the only older still existing observatory being the Vatican Observatory.
The Frans Hals Museum is a museum located in Haarlem, the Netherlands.
The City Hall in Haarlem is the seat of the city's government. It was built in the 14th century replacing the Count's castle.
The Teylershofje is a hofje in Haarlem, Netherlands with 24 houses.
Martin(us) van Marum was a Dutch physician, inventor, scientist and teacher, who studied medicine and philosophy in Groningen. Van Marum introduced modern chemistry in the Netherlands after the theories of Lavoisier, and several scientific applications for general use. He became famous for his demonstrations with instruments, most notable the Large electricity machine, to show statical electricity and chemical experiments while curator for the Teylers Museum.
Wybrand Hendriks, was a Dutch painter and the concierge of the Teylers Museum. He is primarily known because of his portraits.
Vincent Jansz. van der Vinne, was a Dutch 18th century painter and the great-grandson of Vincent van der Vinne.
The Fundatiehuis is the former family home of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst on the Damstraat 21 in Haarlem, Netherlands. After his death it became the seat of the Teylers Stichting and through its front door, visitors could reach the Oval room.
Leendert Viervant de Jonge, was a Dutch architect and cabinet builder.
Jacobus Barnaart was a Dutch merchant and one of the five first directors of the Teylers Stichting.
Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen, sometimes referred to as Volcardus Simon Martinus van der Willigen, was a Dutch mathematician, physicist and professor.
The Eerste Schilderijenzaal, or Painting Gallery I, is one of two art gallery rooms in Teylers Museum and is the oldest art gallery for contemporary Dutch art in the Netherlands. It was built onto the back of Teylers Oval Room in 1838. It was the young museum's first exhibition space for paintings and could be entered through the Oval Room, which was itself located behind the Fundatiehuis, the former home of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst.
The Tweede Schilderijenzaal, or Painting Gallery II, is one of two art gallery rooms in Teylers Museum. The Tweede Schilderijenzaal was built in 1893 as an extension of the first gallery.
The Instrument Room is a room in Teylers Museum which houses a part of the museum's Cabinet of Physics: a collection of scientific instruments from the 18th and 19th centuries. The instruments in the collection were used for research as well as for educational public demonstrations. Most of them are demonstration models that illustrate various aspects of electricity, acoustics, light, magnetism, thermodynamics, and weights and measures. The rest are high-quality precision instruments that were used for research.
The Teylers Coin and Medal Room, or Numismatisch Kabinet, is a small display room in Teylers Museum that was designed in 1888 and furnished with special display cabinets in 1889.
