Drawing of the Physics Laboratory in Leiden, Harm Kamerlingh Onnes, 1921
Inv P02032

The artist Harm Kamerlingh Onnes was greatly inspired by the complicated technical installations in the laboratory of his uncle, the Leiden professor Heike Kamerlingh Onnes. But Harm also had an eye for human relationships in the laboratory. Here we see on the left the principal instrument-maker `Master' Flim waiting tired and with drooping shoulders to see whether what he has produced will work. The professor on the right stands watching like a real 'Mr Grump', with his fists in his back. In fact Kamerlingh Onnes was especially proud of his instrument-makers, but at the same time he kept a distance. The workers belonged to a different class from the professor. And he made his technicians work hard, to the very last. When at his funeral the hearse drove at a fast pace, one of them quipped: "That's the old man all over; even after he's dead he makes you run."