emphasised that all of the Foundation’s organisations were “according to the express wish of
the Testator, administrated and treated as private property”.156
At the same time, as the years progressed, the trustees were willing to go to greater lengths to
enable more people to benefit from the collections. In July 1825 the National Manufacturers’
Fair was held in Haarlem, and Teylers Museum was open every day except Sunday from noon
to 3pm throughout the entire month. In a move that provides an indication of just how many
visitors were expected, the amount of tickets was limited to 100 per day.157
As has been mentioned before, by 1826 the museum’s premises had been extended, so that
they now included a reading room and extra shelf space for the library. Rules were set up for
the library’s usage in 1825. It was to be open to citizens of Haarlem every Wednesday and
Saturday between 1pm and 4pm, and every day except Sunday from 1pm to 2pm to visitors
from out of town. Users had to be above the age of 18. Tickets to the library could be obtained
from either the trustees or van Marum and his assistant librarian. These tickets were handed
out independently of those for the museum, which “remains accessible to each and
everybody”, as was explicitly stated.158 Books were not available on loan, smoking was
strictly forbidden, and a “proper silence” was to be kept in the reading room. In case the
librarian was not present, it was up to the assistant librarian to ensure that visitors behaved
adequately.159 Finally, a limited number of tickets was made available - 80 upon the reading
room’s opening - “in order to prevent as much as possible an all too great influx of
inhabitants of this city at the opening of the Library”. 160
Determining exactly how many visitors came to Teylers Museum over the course of the first
decades of its existence is, unfortunately, impossible. The restrictions listed above provide an
indication, but one cannot know for sure whether they were called for or met. The visitor’s
books contain between 300 and 400 signatures per year.161 They include the signatures of all
those who published detailed travel reports that leave no doubt they actually visited the
museum, but it is of course impossible to determine whether every visitor to the museum
really signed the book.162 Those who were keeping a diary with intention of publishing their
experiences and those who had come from far afield might have been more inclined to leave a
trace of their visit anyway, and citizens of Haarlem might have been less inclined to do so.
Either way, one can safely say that at least a few hundred visitors came to see Teylers
Museum every year. This sounds as if one did not exactly have to queue to obtain a ticket or
156 “onder zekere bepalingen”; “volgens den uitdrukkelijken wil van den Testateur, als een particulier eigendom
bestuurd en behandeld wordende”; “Directienotulen”, 31.08.1810, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 6. Cf. Mijnhardt, Tot heil
van ’t menschdom: culturele genootschappen in Nederland, 1750-1815, 331.
157 Janse, “Uit nieuwsgierigheid en ter onderricht,” 18.
158 “voor elk en een iegelijke toegankelijk blijft”; “Directienotulen”, 20.05.1825, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 7.
159 “behoorlijke stilte”; Ibid.
1 “ten einde zoo veel mogelijk bij de opening van de Bibliotheek, den alte grooten toevloed van bewoners dezer
stadte voorkomen”; “Directienotulen”, 14.04.1826, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 7.
I am grateful to Geert-Jan Janse for sharing with me the precise amount o f annual signatures, which he
established as part o f the research for his article “Uit nieuwsgierigheid en ter onderricht”. Cf. Janse, “Uit
nieuwsgierigheid en ter onderricht,” 14-18. Geert-Jan Janse, pp. 14-18.
1 Such as, for example, Georg Forster, Kaspar Heinrich von Sierstorpff and August Hermann Niemeyer.
to get in, but at the same time this is no inconsiderable number for what had started out as the
repository of two private learned societies.
3. Eyes Wide Open
A sense of what visitors experienced during a visit to Teylers Museum can be obtained from
the travel reports some of them published upon returning home. They are revealing in many
ways. It is reassuring to any student of Teylers Museum for instance to see that almost all of
the dozen or so travellers who visited Teylers during the first decades of its history were
stumped by the Foundation’s organisational structure - almost none of them gives a correct
summary of Pieter Teyler’s intentions in writing his will, or the history of the institutions
under the Foundation’s purview. More importantly though, their descriptions of the museum
provide snapshots of developments at the museum, unbiased in the sense that they are
provided by outsiders, rather than anyone affiliated with the Teyler Foundation.
It is remarkable how all of the visitors were impressed by the magnificence of the Oval Room.
An anonymous English gentleman who arrived at Teylers Museum in 1790 for instance
described it as “extremely lofty, spacious, and handsome”,, another anonymous visitor who
came to Haarlem that same year spoke of an “excellent round Hall”, the German physics
teacher Johann Friedrich Droysen who visited in 1801 considered the building “worthy of its
rich founder, beautiful and elegant”, the aforementioned Sierstorpff spoke of a “magnificent
and very spacious building”, the co-director of the Franckesche Stiftungen in Halle August
Hermann Niemeyer echoed his compatriot’s sentiments in describing the Oval Room as a
“magnificent building” upon seeing it in 1806, and so on.163 Many were also struck by the
contrast of the building’s unassuming outer façade, and the glamour of its interior - recall that
visitors entered the museum through the Foundation House, and had to pass through the
trustees’ meeting room before entering the Oval Room. The anonymous traveller from 1790
for instance stated “the access [is] somewhat poor” before praising the interior, and
Sierstorpff recounted how “[o]ne is first led through a succession of rooms, which serve as
meeting places for the five Conservators [trustees] and for similar events. Here everything is
nicely furnished and richly decorated”.164
163 “vortrefflichen runden Saal”; “seines reichen Stifters würdig, schön und geschmackvoll”; “prächtiges und
sehr geräumiges Gebäude”; “prächtiges Gebäude”; An Entertaining Tour, Containing a Variety o f Incidents and
Adventures, in a Journey through Part o f Flanders, Germany & Holland (London: H.D. Symmonds, 1791), 243,
Bemerkungen a u f einer Reise nach Holland im Jahre 1790 (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1792), Johann
Friedrich Droysen, Bemerkungen, gesammelt a u f einer Reise durch Holland und einen Theil Frankreichs im
Sommer 1801 (Göttingen: Heinrich Dieterich, 1802), 109; Sierstorpff, Bemerkungen a u f einer Reise durch die
Niederlande nach Paris im eilften Jahre der großen Republik, 2:556; August Hermann Niemeyer,
Beobachtungen au f Reisen in und außer Deutschland, vol. 3 (Halle: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1824),
151.
164 “der Zugang [ist] etwas ärmlich”; “[m]an wird zuerst in einige Zimmer geführt, die zu den
Zusammenkünften der fünf Conservatoren, und bey ähnlichen Gelegenheiten gebraucht werden. Hierin ist alles