The origins of the first dispute lay in van Breda’s appointment to a commission that was
tasked with drawing up a geological map of the Netherlands. 165 The commission was
appointed by Thorbecke in 1852 and consisted of three of the Netherlands’ most eminent
scientists, the botanist Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel, van Breda’s former student of
geology Winand Carel Hugo Staring and van Breda himself. Despite a promising start, they
had reached an impasse in 1855. After a bitter and nasty dispute in public and vitriolic
discussions at the Royal Academy — van der Willigen attended a meeting as a new member
for the first time at the height of the animosities — it was decided that the only solution was to
disband the commission.166 Staring subsequently finished the work on his own, to great
acclaim. As for the root causes of this bitter dispute, it has been suggested that the members’
differences related “to diverging views on the scientific status of geology, its aims and its
methods”.167
The second dispute started in 1856, when the members of the Academy were asked to decide
what the best shape was to give a lightning conductor that was to be placed on the roof of a
mental institution.168 Van Breda, who had not been included in the team of Academy
members who were to find a solution, assailed their proposal. Eventually, this scientific
dispute descended into something of a farce, with other members - not unjustly - accusing
van Breda of merely invoking the authority of foreign physicists to support his criticism. His
criticism was ignored, the device that was eventually fitted to the roof of the institution
worked perfectly and van Breda was humiliated.
Even at Teylers, van Breda eventually left his position in discord with the trustees. Van Breda
left because of old age, but the discord came about after he had left, because the trustees
began to suspect that he had appropriated items from the Foundation’s collections. These, of
course, were quite serious allegations. The jury is still out as to whether they rang true. All
that is known is that when van Breda’s successor Winkler went to inspect his predecessor and
former boss’s collection in 1867, he could not find the specimens that were missing at Teylers
and were supposedly now being stored at van Breda’s, so that certainly gives van Breda the
benefit of the doubt.169
If the trustees’ suspicions were founded, it is almost bitterly ironic that van Breda’s son
subsequently tried to sell his father’s geological collection to the Teyler Foundation after van
1 5 On the commission, its work and the way it was disbanded see: Berkel, De Stem van de Wetenschap:
Geschiedenis van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1:344-350; M. van den Bosch,
“J.G.S. van Breda en de Commissie voor de Geologische Kaart 1852-1855,” in Leven en werken van J.G.S. van
Breda (1788-1867), ed. A.S.H. Breure and J.G. de Bruijn (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink, 1979), 267-402;
Patricia E. Faasse, “W.C.H. Staring’s Geological Map o f the Netherlands,” in Dutch Pioneers o f the Earth
Sciences, ed. Jacques L.R. Touret and Robert P.W. Visser, vol. 5, History o f Science and Scholarship in the
Netherlands (Amsterdam: KNAW, 2004), 129-138.
For the final report on these altercations see: “Nota betreffende het Geologisch onderzoek van Nederland”,
1855, Haarlem, NHA, Archief KNAW, vol. 64, nr. 213, fol. 26. For van der Willigen’s election see: “Notulen
Afdeling Natuurkunde”, 29.03.1856, Haarlem, NHA, Archief KNAW, vol. 64, nr. 4, fol. 332.
167 Faasse, “W.C.H. Staring’s Geological Map o f the Netherlands,” 130.
On the details o f this dispute and its effects see: Berkel, De Stem van de Wetenschap: Geschiedenis van de
Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1:350—353.
A.S.H. Breure, “J.G.S. van Breda als Paleontoloog, privé en in Teylers Museum,” in Leven en werken van
J.G.S. van Breda (1788-1867), ed. A.S.H. Breure and J.G. de Bruijn (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink, 1979), 187.
Breda passed away in 1867. Because of the high asking price the trustees initially rejected the
offer and most of the items ended up in the British Museum in London, although the Teyler
Foundation did later purchase some of the specimens that were still available.170
4. “La collection, c’est moi” (and maybe Logeman and Winkler)
The fact that these allegations could surface and van Breda could not refute them offhand is
indicative of another matter: van Breda did not see any real necessity to define a clear
boundary between the Foundation’s and his own, i.e. private, interests. He evidently did not
feel he was fulfilling a job, but identified himself with the collection. One could perhaps
caricaturise his attitude as “la collection, c ’est moi”. This way of identifying oneself with a
collection would not have been at all unusual in the 18th and even at the dawn of the 19th
century. But as collections were increasingly seen to fulfil a public — educational and identity-
forming - function and were thereby seen to serve a set of ideals that transcended the
personal, van Breda’s attitude became increasingly out of date.
That van Breda made no distinction between his own interests and those of the Foundation is
not to say that he did not care for the collection and the museum. On the contrary, he
expanded them immensely and used his considerable intelligence and clout to their advantage,
ensuring that they remained of high quality. It also doesn’t mean he did not render them
accessible: In March 1852 for instance he asked for and was granted
“permission [...] to have access to the Museum & the Library of this Foundation, with four
trainees of the R. Academy at Delft [...] to enable them to complete their studies, and to use
the Great Hall with these young men during the winter period, and to have this hall heated, to
enable them to see selected objects.”171
Van Breda also spent plenty of time on research of his own. He performed a series of physics
experiments for instance and acquired the necessary equipment for this.172
He conducted these experiments together with Willem Martinus Logeman. Logeman is a
somewhat enigmatic yet in all likelihood highly underrated figure, both in the history of
Teylers Museum and in the history of Dutch physics. He is remembered chiefly for his skills
as an instrument maker and the strong magnets he produced together with N. van Wetteren;
170 Ibid., 187-188. For the initial offer and the trustees’ refiisal see: “Directienotulen”, 04.10.1867 & 18.10.1867,
Haarlem ATS, vol. 9.
1 1 “toestemming [...] om met vier kweekelingen van de Kon. Akademie te Delft [...] den toegang te mogen
hebben tot het Museum & de Bibliotheek dezer Stichting, tot voltoijing hunner studien, en gedurende dit winter
getijde met die jongelieden, ter bezigtigin [sic] vande hun aantewijzen voorwerpen, gebruik te mogen maken van
de Groote Zaal en dit vertrek alsdan te mogen laten verwarmen.” “Directienotulen”, 05.03.1852, Haarlem, ATS,
vol. 9.
On these experiments see: H.A.M. Snelders, “De bijdragen van J.G.S. van Breda tot de Natuurkunde,” in
Leven en werken van J.G.S. van Breda (1788-1867), ed. A.S.H. Breure and J.G. de Bruijn (Haarlem: H.D.
Tjeenk Willink, 1979), 91-131.