Pieter Teyler was a wealthy cloth merchant and banker of Scottish descent, who bequeathed his fortune for the advancement of religion, art, and science.

Under a single roof, it would house all manner of suitable artifacts, such as books, scientific instruments, drawings, fossils, and minerals.

The concept was based on a revolutionary ideal derived from the Enlightenment: that people could discover the world independently, without coercion by church or state.

The example that guided the founders in establishing Teylers Museum was the Mouseion of classical antiquity: a "temple for the muses of the arts and sciences" that could also serve as a meeting place for scholars and the venue for various collections.

Teylers Museum holdings include fossils (some are the first ever discovered of Archaeopteryx), minerals, scientific instruments, medals, coins, and paintings.

To disseminate natural and cultural knowledge, public experiments were conducted, such as those with van Marum's large electrostatic generator built in 1784 by John Cuthbertson in Amsterdam (the largest in the world).

[citation needed] The collection of Teylers Museum holdings include works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Guercino, and Claude Lorrain.

[citation needed] The Painting Galleries show a collection of works from the Dutch Romantic School and the later Hague and Amsterdam Schools, including major works by Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Andreas Schelfhout, Cornelis Springer, Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Jan Willem Pieneman, Anton Mauve, Jacob Maris, Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, George Hendrik Breitner, Jozef Israëls, and Isaac Israëls.

The theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner Hendrik Lorentz was appointed Curator of Teylers Physics Cabinet in 1910, a position he held until his death in 1928.

Under his leadership, the Teylers Museum conducted scientific research in such diverse fields as optics, electromagnetism, radio waves, and atom physics.