Electrostatic generator, 1788, John Cuthbertson, Amsterdam
From the private collection of Jan Rudolph Deiman
Inv V09710

In 1789 the French researcher Lavoisier published a new chemical theory with which many phenomena could be explained. But there was a problem. According to Lavoisier water was composed of oxygen and hydrogen, and that was hard to believe. For man had known for centuries that water is an indivisible element; one of the building blocks of nature. Two amateurs from Haarlem, the doctor Jan Rudolph Deiman and the merchant Adriaan Paets van Troostwijk, put it to the test. They placed two gold threads in water, connected them to the electrostatic generator, and collected the resulting gas mixture. They then exploded the same mixture, so that water was again formed. It was water, it became water, and in between it was a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas; a convincing proof.