Teylers Museum

Pieter Teyler van der Hulst, a Haarlem silk merchant and Mennonite, left his fortune in 1778 to two foundations for the promotion of religion, art and science, and the Oval Room opened to the public in 1784 - which makes Teylers the oldest museum in the Netherlands and one of the oldest anywhere still in its original building. The point is that it was never brought up to date: the Oval Room and the nineteenth-century galleries are lit entirely by daylight through the roof, with no electric light in the display spaces, the cases are the original mahogany, the labels are handwritten, and the objects sit where they were put. The collections are fossils and minerals, scientific instruments including a very large electrostatic generator of 1784, and a print and drawing cabinet with Michelangelo, Raphael and Rembrandt sheets shown in rotation.

History

Pieter Teyler van der Hulst (1702-1778), a wealthy Haarlem cloth merchant and banker and a Mennonite, left his fortune for the advancement of religion, art and science, divided between two societies. His executors built the Oval Room behind his house in 1784 as a centre of study for books, instruments, drawings, fossils and minerals, modelled on the Mouseion of antiquity, "a temple for the muses of the arts and sciences" (Wikipedia, Teylers Museum).

What you'll find

• The Oval Room of 1784 - the original museum space, unaltered.
• Daylight only - no electric light in the galleries, as designed.
• A huge electrostatic generator - the 1784 machine still in the instrument room.
• Michelangelo and Raphael drawings - shown in rotation from the print cabinet.

When to go

All year, on a bright day. Half a day.

Things to know

Because the galleries use daylight only, a dark winter afternoon means genuinely dim rooms - go when it is bright. Closed Mondays. Drawings rotate for conservation and specific sheets may not be up.

Nearby

The Frans Hals Museum and the Grote Kerk are a short walk away.

Key facts