Yet while this somewhat sombre assessment of developments in Haarlem after World War I
suggests that, by this time, the Teyler Foundation and with it Teylers Museum may have
passed their prime as a nodal point of Dutch intellectual life, on another level the Foundation
was enjoying unprecedented success: Teylers Museum was enjoying unprecedented acclaim
as a museum for the general public. Not only did the museum’s 1885 extension with its neoclassical,
clearly visible entrance façade establish its status as a public institution devoted to
the arts and sciences (the new entrance positively embraced the public); but by the beginning
of the 20' century Teylers Museum’s instrument collection was also widely recognised as
harbouring great importance for the history of science.
This last point forms the overarching theme of this chapter: the way in which Teylers
Museum increasingly took on a role as museum of the history of science - alongside its role
as a public art museum - around the turn of the century.
As in the previous two chapters, one of the curators’ of the scientific instrument collection’s
professional and personal biography - particularly his activities at Teylers Museum - can
serve as a vantage point from which to gauge and understand the overall changes taking place
in the way the museum’s collections were perceived and handled. In this chapter, the spotlight
is on Hendrik Antoon Lorentz.
By way of summary and to provide an idea of the timeframe this chapter will be dealing with,
Lorentz was appointed to the newly created chair in theoretical physics at Leiden University
in 1877, negotiations concerning his appointment as curator of the Teyler Foundation’s
laboratory and instrument collection commenced in 1909, he was officially employed by the
Foundation as from 1912, and he held the post of curator until his death in 1928.
The emphasis here is not so much on Lorentz’ biography, but on his tenure as curator in
Haarlem. Particular attention will be paid to questions such as why Lorentz was approached
by the trustees in the first place, why he accepted the post of curator at Teylers, what this
reveals about the Foundation’s self-image, and in how far Lorentz’ appointment and
activities during his tenure reflect his own views on the meaning and purpose of scientific
research.
What’s more, the period during which Lorentz was an employee of the Teyler Foundation is
particularly interesting not only because this coincided with the Foundation’s financial decline
and the Foundation’s laboratory gradually losing its status as one of the major hothouses of
experimental research in the Netherlands, but also because it saw the emergence of a whole
new type of museum: the museum of the history of science. Whereas Teyler Museum’s status
as (part) museum of the history of science had still been exceptional upon Lorentz’ arrival -
just a few years before, for example, it had served as a reference point for the founders of the
Deutsches Museum in Munich, which is itself considered to be one of the first modem
“science museums” in the world - by the time Lorentz passed away a whole range of
museums devoted to the history of science were about to be founded. By the 1930s the towns
of Leiden, Oxford and Florence (to name just a few) played host to such institutions.
So the spotlight is on Lorentz in this chapter; but it needs to be said that, in order to fully
understand the events taking place during his tenureship both within Teylers Museum and
outside Teylers Museum, one has to obtain a profound sense of the changes that had taken
place over the course of the decades preceding Lorentz’ arrival in Haarlem. More attention
than might at first seem necessary will therefore be devoted to the final decades of the 19th
century.
More specifically, the first half of this chapter focuses on events that took place before
Lorentz was even asked to take up the post of curator. Firstly, an overview of the changes in
the Dutch government’s cultural policy will be given and a closer look will be taken at the
constmction of Teylers Museum’s new annex. Questions such as why it was built, why its
particular design was chosen, and what this reveals about the trustees’ ideas on what role the
museum was to fulfil, and how this is related to the policy changes taking place during the
same period are addressed. Secondly, a summary of the biographies of the curators who were
in charge of the scientific collections at Teylers Museum during the late 19th century, Tiberius
Comelis Winkler and Elisa van der Ven, are provided. These provide background information
that allow for a better assessment Hthirdly - of the full impact the new annex to the museum
had on Teylers Museum’s overall character. The changing way in which the scientific
collections in particular were perceived is illustrated through the publication of two popular
guidebooks, written by Winkler and van der Ven for a lay audience. Having identified how
Teylers Museum had changed by the early 20' century, Lorentz’ activities in Haarlem can
then be analysed.
But first, the spotlight is on developments taking place while Lorentz was still in his 20s.
II. A New Type of Museum
1. New Government Policy in the 1870s
The 1870s saw a major overhaul of the Dutch government’s cultural policy. Most importantly,
instead of steadfastly following a sort of mantra that all matters pertaining to culture should
essentially be left to private initiative, the government began to take responsibility for its
nation’s cultural heritage and became actively involved in its preservation. This of course
included it becoming more involved in the running of the state’s own museums, and this
change of policy was therefore also most strikingly represented by the construction of a new,
monumental building for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which was completed in 1885.
One man’s name in particular is associated with these changes: that of Victor de Stuers. This
nobleman from the Southern region of Brabant became something of a household name when
he published an exceedingly well-written polemical article of more than 80 pages in the