Viervant draw up plans this effect which they were shown in September 1780. Viervant,
incidentally, was the same architect who designed Teylers Museum, which was already being
constructed at this point. Why the trustees didn’t go through with these plans is not quite
clear, “great difficulties” are only referred to later, which probably concerned the occupants of
neighbouring houses.83 Whatever the reasons, in order to avoid these “great difficulties” the
trustees decided to acquire an old brewery which first came up for sale in April 1782.
Negotiations over the price ran for over two years and at one point were even broken off
completely, until in August 1784 the trustees finally agreed to buy the grounds of the brewery
if the former owner agreed to break down all the buildings on the property. Viervant was then
commissioned with constructing a new almshouse. The property and the construction of the
new building of course came at a price - which van Marum later quoted as the reason why, to
his annoyance, the funds for the acquisition of new instruments for “his” museum had been
slashed. As was already pointed out in the introduction to this section, it was however not
unlikely that the court case brought by Klaarenbeek had something to do with the change in
financial policy as well.
5. The Haarlem Drawing Academy
The almshouse was not the only institution the Foundation devoted time and money to
because Pieter Teyler himself already had - another was the Haarlem Drawing Academy
(Teekenacademie). Interestingly enough, Teyler had not mentioned the Academy with as
much as a word throughout his will, even though it was clearly important to him during the
last years of his life. As was mentioned in the previous section, he was one of the founder
members of the Academy, which was chartered in 1772. 4 Given that he had penned his will
some 15 years earlier, this could help explain why it did not include the Drawing Academy.
Teyler remained one of the three “main directors” (hoofddirecteuren) of the academy until his
death, thereby actively supporting its aim of enabling individuals deprived of the financial
means to pay for a full education to be able to attend classes and be trained in the art of
drawing. As from 1775 he also provided one of his houses in the Damstraat, which was
referred to as the House Hulst, as a venue for the Academy’s meetings and drawing lessons.
After Teyler passed away the academy asked the Teyler Foundation as the heirs to Teyler’s
fortune if its members could continue to use the House Hulst and if the Foundation might
continue to provide the Academy with the financial support Teyler had provided. Initially the
Foundation wanted to sell the House Hulst to the academy for the comparatively small sum of
flOOO,-, but the Academy declined the offer. One of the main reasons is likely to have been
the dilapidated state of the building itself. Even before Teyler’s death, complaints were
recorded about the draught and cold in the room in which classes on nude drawing were held.
83 “Directienotulen”, 05.04.1780, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 5.
84 On the history o f the academy see: Bert Sliggers, Augustijn Claterbos, 1750-1828: Opleiding en werk van een
Haarlems kunstenaar (Zwolle: Waanders, 1990), 16-20.
1
The Academy’s board of directors and the Teyler Foundation then agreed that the academy
could continue to use the premises provided by Teyler for another three years at the
comparatively low rent of f60,- per year. When those three years had passed, the Academy
found new premises in the Warmoesgracht in a building referred to as the Hof van Holland.
The Foundation sold off the House Hulst, and also agreed to provide the academy with an
annual subsidy of fl40,- for the duration of ten years so that it would be able to shoulder the
higher rent obligations brought about by the change of venue. The Foundation’s annual
subsidy was raised by another f60,- in 1786.
However, the agreement in 1781 had been that the subsidy would not be automatically
extended once the ten years had passed - something the Academy’s board of directors appears
to have overlooked, or perhaps not taken seriously. When a representative of the Academy
was sent to the Foundation to collect f200,- for 1792 without re-applying for financial
support, this seriously offended the Teyler Foundation’s trustees. They pointed out what a
“gross and inexcusable omission” this was, and subsequently refused to pay the academy any
more money, despite repeated pleas on their behalf.85 Although the academy managed to
sustain is activities for another four years solely through membership fees, by 1795 it had
clocked up such a high amount of debt that it had to be dissolved. In almost bittersweet irony,
it was the kastelein of the Teyler Foundation, Wybrand Hendriks, who repaid the Academy’s
debts of about f250,- and was allowed to keep all its material possessions - such as clay
models - in return. Before concluding that this was a case of adding insult to injury however,
it needs to be pointed out that Hendriks’ association with the academy went back further than
his association with the Teyler Foundation. He had in fact become a director of the academy
when Pieter Teyler was still alive.
6. The Learned Societies
Finally, what has not been mentioned yet but what in fact constituted one of the trustees’ most
important tasks in the immediate aftermath of Teyler’s death, was the establishment of the
two learned societies for theology and the arts and sciences. This was not too difficult, given
Teyler’s precise instructions. Essentially, the members only needed to be assembled. The
trustees decided to call a meeting of all those to be appointed to the society for theology on
June 4th 1778, and of all those to be appointed to the society for the arts and sciences on June
6th 1778. They only ran up against some minor difficulties. One was that Teyler had only
named five members for the society for theology. This problem was easily tackled by electing
a new member to fill the vacant position. For the society for the arts and sciences on the other
hand, Teyler had suggested a total of eight members - two of these, however, had already
passed away.86 It was subsequently decided to leave the number of members at six.
5 “grove en inexcusabele omissie”; Ibid., 20.
86 Mijnhardt, Tot heil van 't menschdom: cultúrele genootschappen in Nederland, 1750-1815, 353.