HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND SCHOLARSHIP IN THE NETHERLANDS Weiss Martin P.M. Weiss Showcasing Science A History of Teylers Museum Showcasing Science in the Nineteenth Century Showcasing Science History of Science and Scholarship in the Netherlands The series History of Science and Scholarship in the Netherlands presents studies on a variety of subjects in the history of science, scholarship and academic institutions in the Netherlands. Series Editors Klaas van Berkel, University of Groningen, Groningen Huib Zuidervaart, Huygens ING (KNAW), The Hague Editorial Board Klaas van Berkel, University of Groningen Karel Davids, VU University Amsterdam Dirk van Delft, Leiden University / Museum Boerhaave Jan van Gijn, University Medical Center, Utrecht Harm Habing, Leiden Observatory Johan Heilbron, Erasmus University Rotterdam / Sorbonne (CESSP) Paris Wessel Krul, University of Groningen Wijnand Mijnhardt, Utrecht University Lissa Roberts, University of Twente, Enschede Huib Zuidervaart, Huygens ING, The Hague Showcasing Science A History of Teylers Museum in the Nineteenth Century Martin P.M. Weiss Amsterdam University Press Printed with financial support of the Teyler Foundation. Cover illustration: T.C. Winkler in the Oval Room of Teylers Museum, c. 1885 Source: Teylers Museum, Haarlem, AF780 Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 224 6 e-isbn 978 90 4853 214 8 doi 10.5117/9789462982246 nur 685 © Martin P.M. Weiss / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. Table of Contents 1 Introduction I Teylers at the Paris Electrical Exhibition 11 II Teylers Museum 18 III Museums and Popular Science 21 IV Structure and Intended Readership of the Book 23 2 The Birth of a Musaeum I The Museum’s Pre-History 27 Martinus van Marum and the Beginning of the Age of Museums 27 Martinus van Marum’s Formative Years and The Holland Society of Sciences 34 Pieter Teyler van der Hulst 41 The Contents of Pieter Teyler’s Last Will and Testament 45 Contextualising the Will: Mennonite Governors in Haarlem 49 Teyler’s Choice of “Arts and Sciences” 55 II The Establishment of Teylers Museum 57 A Financial Setback 57 The Teyler Foundation’s First Trustees 59 The Appointment of a Kastelein 62 The Foundation’s Buildings 63 The Haarlem Drawing Academy 65 Teylers Learned Societies 67 Prize Essay Competitions 71 Pieter Teyler’s Prints and Drawings 72 Birth of a Musaeum 76 The Design of the Oval Room 82 Ideas for the Oval Room 85 Van Marum is Appointed Director of Teylers Museum 96 Teylers Museum and the Public 102 Musaeum or Museum 104 3 Van Marum – Empiricism and Empire I Van Marum’s Work at Teylers Museum 111 Van der Vinne Resigns 111 Experiments with the Cuthbertson Electrostatic Generator 112 Van Marum Generates Attention 115 From Physics to Chemistry 118 A Financial Windfall 119 The Addition of a Laboratory 120 Van Marum’s Acquisition Plans 124 Amateurs and Professionals 129 London and the Aftermath 132 Van Marum’s Practical Appliances 136 Van Marum and the Earth Sciences 138 French Occupation 141 Cuvier and the Mosasaur 144 Homo Diluvii Testis, Lying Stones, and Ohio 146 A Matter of Faith 148 Aesthetic Value 151 Van Marum’s Dispute with the Trustees 154 II Van Marum’s “Philosophy of Science” 155 Van Marum’s Take on Kant 155 A Matter of Belief 157 Relying on Experiments 160 The Practical Turn 163 Van Marum’s Lectures During the French Occupation 168 A Summary of Van Marum’s Ideals 172 III Open All Hours: Public Accessibility of Teylers Museum 1780-1840 173 Tourism Emerges 173 Selection of Visitors? 175 Early Travel Reports of Teylers Museum 179 Teylers Museum as “Testimony to the History of Physics” 184 IV The Forgotten Art 186 No Great Connoisseur of Pictures 186 Christina of Sweden’s Collection of Drawings 188 Changing Definitions of “Art” 190 Paintings by Contemporary Artists 193 4 Van der Willigen – Precision and the Discipline of Physics I An Unexpected Guessing Game (Intro) 197 II Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen (I): Early Years 202 A New Methodology 202 The Athenaeum in Deventer 205 Amateurs, Specialists, and True Physics 206 III The Art of Presenting 212 The Rise of Public Art Exhibitions 212 The First Art Gallery, a Permanent Exhibition? 216 The More Visitors, the More Exclusive? 219 IV Changing Definition of Museums 225 From Scholarly Musaeum to Educational Museum 225 The Great Exhibition, “Albertopolis”, and the South Kensington Museum 226 The Public Museum in Support of Public Mores 229 Prince Albert and the History of Art 231 London to Haarlem 233 V Jacob Gijsbert Samuël van Breda at Teylers Museum 236 Mid-Century Dutch Liberalism 236 Some Critics of Official Dutch Museum Policy 238 Jacob Gijsbert Samuël van Breda 242 Van Breda, Logeman, Winkler 246 Different Approaches to Collecting 249 The Rhenish Mineral-Office Krantz 254 “Monuments of Science” 256 VI Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen (II): Curator in Haarlem 259 On the Job 259 Van der Willigen’s Work in Haarlem 260 Public Lectures and the Centennial in Philadelphia 265 The Special Loan Collection at South Kensington 268 Febris Rheumatica Articularis 271 5 Lorentz – Function Follows Form and Theory Leads to Experiment I Themes of the Chapter 273 II A New Type of Museum 277 New Government Policy in the 1870s 277 The New Annex to Teylers Museum 280 Guards at Teylers Museum 285 Teylers’ New Annex and the Rijksmuseum 288 III T.C. Winkler and E. van der Ven 292 Tiberius Cornelis Winkler 292 Elisa van der Ven 297 IV Function Follows Form 301 Moving House 301 Function Follows Form 305 The Birth of a Museum of the History of Science 307 Science Museums and Museums of the History of Science 310 V Lorentz: A Theoretician as Curator 316 A Revered Theoretical Physicist 316 Much to Offer 317 Refurbishment of the Laboratory and Subsequent Research 321 “The Isolation of Haarlem” 324 The Museum Next Door 329 6 Conclusion I Summary 333 II Musaeum or Museum? 335 III The Changing Status of the Scientific Instrument Collection 336 Appendix 341 Acknowledgements 345 Archives 347 Bibliography 349 Index 365 List of Illustrations Figure 1 The electrostatic generator on display at the Paris Electri- cal Exhibition in 1881 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem) 16 Figure 2 Martinus van Marum (1750-1837), painted by Charles Howard Hodges in 1826 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, KS1999) 37 Figure 3 Group portrait of the trustees of the Teyler Foundation and the architect Leendert Viervant in 1786 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, KS282) 60 Figure 4 A painting of the Oval Room by Wybrand Hendriks, c. 1810 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, KS009) 95 Figure 5 The electrostatic generator as depicted in Van Marum’s “Description” of 1787 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem) 114 Figure 6 The First Art Gallery depicted by Johan Conrad Greive, 1862 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, DD042d) 217 Figure 7 The Oval Room depicted by Johan Conrad Greive, 1862 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, DD042b) 245 Figure 8 Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen (1822-1878), c. 1860 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, FF010) 262 Figure 9 The entrance to Teylers Museum after 1885 (Teylers Museum, AF587) 284 Figure 10 One of the rooms for palaeontological and mineralogical collections in the new annex to Teylers Museum after 1885 (Teylers Museum, Haarlem, AF608) 306 1 Introduction I Teylers at the Paris Electrical Exhibition Gerard Oyens was not keen on being upstaged by the British. But in March of 1881, he was worried he might be – and justifiably so. Oyens had just been tasked with organising the Netherlands’ contribution to the Paris Electrical Exhibition of 1881 and, from his perspective at least, things had not got off to a good start. The idea behind the Electrical Exhibition was that every country in the world could present the newest electrical devices its engineers and scientists had developed. The grand total of these separate, national sec- tions to the Exhibition would then amount to a spectacular celebration and public demonstration of the immense progress that had been made in the field of electrical science in the space of just a few decades. As one official announcement published in France stated: “This exhibition will comprise everything to do with electricity: it will bring together apparatus of various types and various origins which serve to generate, transmit and use electricity”.1 The Paris Exhibition was not the first large-scale international exhibition. Ever since the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, a veritable hype had developed around what came to be known as the World’s Fairs, with every country that could afford to do so organising various international exhibitions on a wide variety of topics. The exhibition in Paris was, however, the first that was devoted exclusively to electricity. What prompted it were the groundbreaking developments that had occurred over the course of a fairly short period preceding the exhibition. Not many years had passed since James Clerk Maxwell published his theory of electromagnetism for instance, and even more recently patents had been filed for the electric telephone and the electric light bulb, by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Alva Edison respectively. The world was quick to realise the far-reaching implications these and other inventions had, and the Paris Exhibition can be seen as the epitome of the excitement they generated, both amongst 1 “Cette exposition comprendra tout ce qui concerne l’electricité : elle réunira les appareils de toute nature et de toute provenance servant à la faire naître, à la propager et à l’utiliser”.