Welcome to Teylers, the oldest museum in the Netherlands — and at nearly 250 years old, still full of surprises. The Teylers Museum in Haarlem delights with a mix of art, fossils, traditional Dutch interiors, and historic scientific instruments — it’s a wild and wonderful place. Step inside, and you’ll find yourself in rooms straight out of the Dutch Enlightenment.

From a Banker’s Home to Museum Space

First built as a private house in 1740 by Pieter Teyler van der Hulst, a wealthy Haarlem banker, merchant, and collector, this grand building was turned into the Teylers Museum after his death in 1778. The official start date of the museum was 1784, when the Oval Room was custom-built to house the growing collection.

Collecting in the Age of Enlightenment

What was in this collection? Well, in a word: everything! Pieter Teyler collected drawings and paintings, scientific instruments and fossils, medals and coins. He was a true Enlightenment gentleman, dedicated to gaining knowledge in all realms in whatever ways he could. The current museum reflects that spirit, and it’s a fascinating place.

That device above, by the way, is the Electrostatic Generator of Martinus van Marum. Constructed in 1784, it was the largest flat-plate electrifying machine in the world, and it could deliver a charge of up to 330,000 volts — and the sign next to it says that experiments with it “cost the lives of many unfortunate animals.”

Fossils, Bones, and Forgotten Beasts

The Teylers Museum is arranged by type of object. You start out in two very old-fashioned rooms filled with fossils and bones.

Important Inventions and Scientific Wonders

The curation here (and in the next few rooms) feels almost deliberately old-fashioned: there’s a lot of stuff, labels are either handwritten or typed, and some things aren’t labeled at all. This was sometimes delightful and sometimes frustrating. When I got to the first room filled with scientific instruments, I often wanted to know what they did, but there were few explanations to be found.

The wooden models and scientific instruments in the Oval Room have much longer and more thorough labels …

… and they share their space with rocks and minerals of all sorts.

What Makes Magic? Early Mechanical Illusions

Small side rooms feature (1) rocks and lights that phosphoresce and fluoresce and (2) one-of-a-kind objects used in magic shows in the late 1700s, when magicians were just starting to take advantage of new understandings in mechanics to fool their audiences.

Dutch Paintings and Prints at the Teylers Museum

Museum visitors next move from the scientific to the artistic in a series of fine art rooms. These might seem wholly disconnected from the museum’s scientific focus, but the Enlightenment was about acquiring all kinds of knowledge to form a grand understanding of the world. So Pieter Teyler collected both drawings …

… and paintings.

Teylers has continued to build on its founder’s collections, and it now boasts a vast array of drawings and prints, largely from the 18th and 19th centuries (the collection also includes earlier works, including some pieces done by Rembrandt and Michelangelo). Since these are fragile documents, few are on display; instead, the Teylers has reproduced some of its drawings and prints in huge folios that you can pull out and admire on a large table.

The World of Illusions: A History of Seeing and Believing

When I visited, the Teylers Museum was featuring an exhibit called The Grand Illusion – 200 years of Virtual Realities. This interactive exploration looks at all sorts of ways in which we have experimented with seeing reality, including stereoscopes, optical illusions, magic lanterns, VR, magic tricks, Pepper’s ghost (an illusion technique) …

… and halls of mirrors:

The Teylers’ Home: A Dutch House Museum

In addition to having a permanent collection and hosting special exhibitions, the Teylers is also a house museum.

I must say that the house museum feels like a bit of an afterthought — it’s a bit like someone generously thought, “Oh, we could show people the rest of the building” without really reflecting on the visit experience. Some of the rooms are beautiful …

… but many are very sparsely decorated, and they generally have very little in the way of explanation. I would love to have seen more in the way of labels or guides for the visitor. That said, I did appreciate the small display of house glass and porcelain …

… the door with five locks, which protected all of Mr. Teyler’s valuables …

… and this barometer-and-thermometer combo, which has weather assessments that include “extra cold,” “fierce frost,” “warm,” “very warm,” and “blood warm.”

Would I recommend a visit to the Teylers? Absolutely — it’s entirely worth a trip. I loved the mix of old and new curation, the amazing building, and the wide array of items in the collection. It’s so much fun to see a little bit of everything — who doesn’t love a Rembrandt and a dinosaur bone in the same place?

Tips: What to Know Before You Go to Haarlem’s Teylers Museum

• Make sure to ask for the audio guide when you buy your ticket — it’s free, and it will be especially important in understanding the first four rooms of the museum.
• The museum is open every day except Monday.
• Don’t miss the excellent gift shop.
• You’ll want to allocate at least an hour and a half to see the whole thing, and you may end up staying longer.
• If you’re staying in Amsterdam, you can get to Haarlem in just 15-20 minutes by train. The Teylers Museum is then about a 12-minute walk from the Haarlem train station. And there’s a lot to see in Haarlem beyond the Teylers — it’s a fun day trip!

Further Reading on Dutch Art & Discovery

• 🏛 Which Dutch Art Museum: The Rijksmuseum or the Mauritshuis — If you’re planning an art-filled itinerary, add these other two Dutch greats to your itinerary.
• 🪶 Unexpected Leiden: From Ancient Civilizations to Exotic Plants — For ancient art and archaeology, visit the National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden), where mummies, temples, and classical sculptures bring history to life.
• 🌬 Wondering About Dutch Windmills — Interested in the scientific side of innovation in the Netherlands? You’ll love my post on the windmills that helped shape the Dutch landscape.