“Mr van Marum, whom I visited at his country house, shouldn’t be blamed for withdrawing
from the tedious business of showing people around, as many travelers have done. Who can
demand of the man of science that he should go to the effort of entertain every inquisitive
person? Unfriendly and disagreeable, as he has been made out, I didn’t find him.
It may be true that the institute itself is, in light of the enormous amounts it has cost and still
costs, more of a showpiece than a charity of public benefit. But should the public benefit be
made into the only criterion of what is meritorious? The lectures on science held every winter,
the treatises that have been published, even the numerous visits to such a rare collection,
complemented by a second natural history cabinet, Mr van Marum’s private property, and
several other collections of the Society of Sciences founded earlier in Haarlem, have surely
evoked many ideas in susceptible minds, and have in addition made visible many things,
known only from descriptions. ” 186
Clearly, Niemeyer was making a balanced assessment.
Finally, the fact that Sierstorpff and Niemeyer already saw the scientific instruments as
potentially more than just research tools within the setting of Teylers Museum is all the more
striking in view of one final feature all known travel reports on Teylers Museum share: with
the exception of just one, they all don’t provide any detail concerning the museum’s art
collection.
Even the single exception is not very informative. It is provided by Samuel Ireland, in his
book “A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France”, detailing a journey
he undertook in 1789. His declared interest were the paintings and painters of the regions he
travelled through. Accordingly, he didn’t mention Teylers Museum’s scientific collections -
all he in fact did was recommend the cabinet “formed by the late Mr. Teyler Vander Hulst, for
the accommodation of young artists and connoisseurs in general”.187 Given that, as was
mentioned before, a large part — if not even all — of Teyler’s prints and drawings had been
sold to van der Vinne early during the Foundation’s history, this is not even a factually
accurate statement.
Nevertheless, just one year later, the Foundation purchased a valuable collection of drawings
which included works by famous artists such as Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Raphael. And
just two months before van Marum passed away, the trustees decided to extend the museum’s
“Daß Herr van Marum, den ich auf seinem Landsitz besuchte, sich des lästigen Geschäfts des Herumführens
überhebt, sollte ihm nicht, wie von manchem Reisenden geschehen ist, verübelt werden. Wer kann dem
wissenschaftlichen Manne anmuthen, sich mit jedem Neugierigen abzuquälen? Unfreundlich und zurückstoßend,
wie man ihn schilderte, habe ich ihn wenigstens nicht geftinden. // Daß das Institut selbst mehr ein Prachtstück,
als, im Verhältnis des ungeheuren Aufwands den es gekostet hat und fortdauernd kostet, gemeinnützig ist, mag
gegründet seyn. Aber soll man denn das Gemeinnützige zum einzigen Maaßstabe des Verdientlichen machen?
Gewiß haben die in jedem Winter gehaltenen naturwissenschaftlichen Vorlesungen, die ans Licht getretenen
Abhandlungen, selbst der häufige Besuch einer so seltnen Sammlung, der noch ein zweytes reiches
Naturalienkabinett, das Privateigenthum des Herrn van Marum, und mehrere andre Sammlungen der in Haarlem
schon früher gegründeten Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, zur Seite stehen, in empfänglichen Geistern schon
eine Menge von Ideen geweckt, auch daneben so vieles, was man nur aus Beschreibungen kannte, zur
Anschauung gebracht.“ Ibid., 3:152.
Samuel Ireland, A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and Part o f France; Made in the Autumn of
1789, vol. 1 (T. Egerton: London, 1796), 123.
premises. Crucially, the sole purpose of the new annex to the Oval Room was to display
paintings the Foundation had started acquiring in the 1820s.
It is time to address this aspect of the history of Teylers Museum.
IV The Forgotten Art
1. No Great Connoisseur of Pictures
During his stay in Kassel in 1798 one of van Marum’s new acquaintances there, a certain Mr.
Traszychi from Poland, suggested they visit the “Bilder Galerie” together. Van Marum
agreed, but Traszychi soon found himself alone at the gallery. As van Marum recorded in his
travel diary:
“I left him there because, being a great connoisseur of pictures, he remained looking at many
pictures longer than pleased me.” 188
Clearly, van Marum did not consider himself a “great connoisseur of pictures” - which is not
to say that he did not appreciate the fine arts. The fact that he accompanied Traszychi in itself
shows that he did. He was no philistine, and even records which paintings he liked in Kassel:
“I was specially attracted by two landscapes with cows by Potter, in one of which, a cow
appears to be making water, and which specially bears the name of La Vache qui pisse, and by
• 5» 189 some pictures of flowers and fruit by Hussem.
For all of his previous journeys his travel diaries reveal that he always took plenty of time to
visit art galleries and churches, as well as scientific collections. Yet it is also perfectly clear
that, throughout his entire life, van Marum’s primary interest lay with the natural sciences.
Indeed he was known to deride all other branches of science as sciences de parlages .
It is these clear priorities that go a long way towards explaining the relative lack of attention
Teylers Museum’s collection of fine art received during the first decades of the museum s
history. Or, more accurately, why the museum appears to have been associated first and
foremost with the natural sciences during this period. It is not that the art collections received
no attention at all. On the contrary, the tmstees saw to it that equal amounts of money were
spent on prints and drawings as were spent on the scientific collections. But van Marum’s
activities and his forceful personality eclipsed everything else at the museum.
188 Marum, “Journey to Kassel, Gottingen, Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar and Jena in 1798,” 281.
189 j i • i
190 As quoted in: Mijnhardt, Tot heil van 't menschdom: cultúrele genootschappen in Nederland, 1750-1815,
323. The quote is taken from the recollections o f H.W. Tydeman.