Johannes or Johan Teyler was a Dutch Golden Age painter, engraver, mathematics teacher, and inventor of the color print.
Background
Teyler was born at Nijmegen. His father was William Taylor, a British or Scottish mercenary, who changed his name to Teyler. After the death of his father, he studied in Leiden and afterwards acquired a post as Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy in Nijmegen in 1670.
Education
Johan studied Latin at the Latin school of Nijmegen and Mathematics at the Kwartierlijke Academie, where he wrote a dissertation in favor of Descartes.
Career
He was a respected professor but was overlooked for promotion due to his Cartesian ideas. The rest of his career was outside Academia. In 1676 he became Vestingbouwkundige fortication manager for Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg during the Scanian War.
In 1678 he also became tutor for the Elector"s sons.
Later the same year he was dismissed and returned to Nijmegen to receive backpay which was still owed him there. With the extra funds he undertook a trip to Italy, Egypt, the Holy Land and Malta, and later sent his diary to the Elector.
He later wrote a popular book on fortifications in 1688 called Architectura militaris (Rotterdam, 1688), and in the same year received a patent on a color printing process that involved using colored ink instead of just black ink when printing plates. In 1695 he had a printing workshop in Rijswijk where he printed military-related works, but in 1697 he sold it and in 1698 undertook another trip to Berlin.
According to the RKD where he is registered as a painter, he returned from Italy in 1683 and remained in Nijmegen except for his trip to Berlin.
Membership
Bentvueghels]
They knew each other from their time in Rome as members of the Bentvueghel club, where Teyler also consorted with his former Mathematics pupil from Nijmegen January van Call.