Teylers Museum is a natural history museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and the oldest public museum in the country. The museum hosts a collection of fossils, minerals, historical scientific instruments and works of art.

The most remarkable item in the collection may be the "Haarlem specimen" (or "Teylers specimen") of Archaeopteryx, the so-called "first bird". Discovered in a quarry near Richstatt, Germany in 1855, it was the very first specimen discovered, though it was misidentified as Pterodactylus crassipes until the American paleontologist John Ostrom recognized its true nature in 1970. The specimen is composed of parts of the hindlimbs, and a hand with a poor impression of feathers, contained in two slabs of Solnhofen limestone.

The museum was founded with money from the legacy of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst (1702–1778), a rich citizen of Haarlem. Next to the museum is the Teylers Hofje, a hofje which was also funded by Teyler's legacy. The museum was designed by architect Leendert Viervant (1752–1801) in 1779. It was built next to the building of Teyler van der Hulst, and extended with a large oval room. In the 19th century the building was expanded with a new front looking at the river Spaarne.

The original mission of Teylers museum included research as well as education. The theoretical physicist Hendrik Lorentz was appointed director of research at Teylers in 1910, a position he held until his death in 1928. At the time of his appointment Lorentz was at the height of his scientific career and was a central figure in the international community of physicists. Under his leadership, Teylers Museum conducted scientific research in such diverse fields as optics, electromagnetism, radio waves and atom physics. Lorentz was succeeded by the physicist and musician Adriaan Fokker.

External links

• Teylers Museum (in Dutch)

Haarlem | Museums in the Netherlands | Dutch culture | Natural history museums | Teylers museum