The document also clearly betrays just how ambitious van Marum was. It is worth noting how
his contract already refers to the “the best instrumentmakers”, and geological specimens that
“cannot be easily acquired in another way”. The best was just about good enough for van
Marum.
Finally, the contract also reveals a little about how van Marum intended to use the museum
space he had been entrusted with, i.e. the Oval Room. On the one hand, it was obviously
supposed to function as a place where experiments could be performed, for example with the
electrostatic generator. On the other hand however, van Marum was clearly equally aware of
its aesthetic qualities, and the possibility of showcasing, if not items from the collections
themselves, then at least the names of those who had donated the most precious of these
items. The only way of explaining paragraph four of the contract is that the general aura of the
new institution, i.e. the prestige associated with the disinterested pursuit of knowledge in the
name of Teyler, which in turn was bolstered by the Foundation’s considerable financial
muscle, was to incite further donations. For van Marum, this was another card he could play
not only in his campaign to expand the collections, but simultaneously on his way towards
consolidating his position as the head of a prestigious, well endowed research institute.
Whatever his motives, he was capitalising on the Oval Room’s splendour.
There are more indications than this one paragraph in his contract that van Marum was well
aware of how both the Oval Room and the collection it housed could hardly fail to impress
visitors. Recall for instance that he kept geological specimens present in the collection in
duplicate at his own house, where he seems also to have conducted all his business with
travelling traders. Although he is likely to have done so for pragmatic reasons as well, one can
imagine how it would hardly have helped his bargaining position if he had immediately
initiated the traders into the magnificent splendour of the Oval Room. And almost ironically,
at the same time, and whether he did it consciously or not, van Marum was also dissociating
the Oval Room from the “unpleasant” or “filthy business” of day-to-day trading and bartering.
Items that had entered and left van Marum’s home as tradable commodities with a
(negotiable) price tag in the market for minerals, became something else once they entered the
Oval Room: they were now part of a collection serving the purpose of disinterested research,
which meant their value lay in their research value, and in the way they complemented other
items in the collection. Crucially, this “commodity situation” was not temporary, but
permanent.158 Teylers Museum was here to stay, as van Marum made clear. Ironically, this in
turn was precisely the prestige and aura he could then capitalise on in the market. A good
example of this occurred in December 1784, when van Marum managed to persuade Pieter
Alexander Hasselaer to donate the collection of minerals he had previously promised the
Holland Society to Teylers Museum instead. Initially reluctant, Hasselaer was persuaded to
158 “Commodity situation” is taken here in Arjun Appadurai’s sense o f the term: Arjun Appadurai, “Introduction:
Commodities and the Politics o f Value,” in The Social Life o f Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 13-16. In Appadurai’s terms, the objects in Teylers Museum
are best described as “ex-commodities”.
support the new institution when van Marum assured him that he “could be assured of the
long-term existence of the Museum of the Foundation”.15
A further example illustrates how van Marum was well aware at least of the mineral
collection’s potential to impress visitors: at the same meeting during which his contract was
discussed, van Marum suggested to the trustees that two special foldaway showcases should
be incorporated into the flat-top cabinet that Viervant was busy constructing for the centre of
the Oval Room. As van Marum envisioned them - and as they were soon built — these
showcases, situated on both sides of the cabinet, would fold away underneath its table-high
surface. Their single purpose was to display “the most beautiful gold- and silver- Gemstones
or other Fossils, which display themselves most beautifully to the eye, and as a result draw the
greatest attention from the visitors”.1
13. Open All Hours
The fact that van Marum was taking “visitors” (bezichtigers) into account already implies that
visitors were a regular phenomenon at Teylers Museum, even during this early stage. Indeed,
it is one of the most remarkable aspects of the history of Teylers Museum that, in principle, it
was accessible without restriction from the very beginning on, and a little more needs be said
at this point about the museum’s early public accessibility.
In his will, Teyler had stipulated that the collections stored in his former house in the
Damstraat 21 were to be accessible to the members of both learned societies “at all times”.
In what probably amounted to a gesture of goodwill towards van der Vinne and an attempt to
guarantee that he could enjoy some privacy in the Foundation House, the trustees soon
decreed that the members were only allowed to consult the collections in the daytime,
although the will states at all times”.162 What was more significant in the long term though,
was that the way they phrased this apparent restriction on access to the collections, they now
explicitly allowed the members to show the collection to interested third parties as well. The
minutes record “that the Members have no Liberty to introduce a person or persons who are
not Members of the Societies in any way at night to this House; which admission of Strangers
the Trustees do not wish to contest in the Daytime.”1
159 “zijn Ed. op de durzaamheid van het Museum der Fundatie konde Staat maken”; Martinus van Marum:
“Journaal van mijne verrichtingen ter verkrijging eener verzameling van Fossilia in Teyler s Museum , 1782-
1790, Haarlem, NHA, Archief van Marum, vol. 529, nr. lid , 04.12.1784.
160 “de fraaiste goud- en zilver- Edele Steenen o f andere fossilia, die zieh het schoonst voor het oog vertoonen,
en hier door de meeste attentive [sic] van de bezichtigers tot zieh trekken”; Ibid., 25.09.1784.
161 “ten allen tijde”; Sliggers, De idealen van Pieter Teyler: een erfenis uit de Verlichting, 201.
162 “overdag, hoewel in het testament staat ten alien tijde”; “Directienotulen”, 30.10.1778, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 5.
163 “dat de Leden geen Vrijheid hebben, om persoon o f persoonen geen Lid o f Leden van de Collégien zijnde, bij
avond ten dezen Huize op eenigerleije wijze toete laten; welke admissie van Vreemdelingen Directeuren onder
ondertusschen den Leden niet willen betwisten bii Dag.” Ibid.