h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An almost weird story I am writing here, "although" about still-life-painters in 17th century Holland. Especially those who painted tulips that had suddenly become magical in those days...

Originally the tulip is a wild flower from Asia (Himalaya mountains), tamed by the Turks and the cultivated tulips came to Holland by way of Clusius, who successfully raised the first European tulips around 1600 in Vienna.
He fled to Holland for religious sanctuary. He took his tulip bulbs with him. Both thrived in the Dutch climate and an industry was born, mainly around Amsterdam.


In Holland it is the so called “Golden Age” for an elite, because of colonies, slavery and normal international trade over sea. So it’s a “Golden Age” with very bloody roots.

When the middle classes began to realize how much money the upper classes spent on tulip bulbs, they sensed a real opportunity to do good business, and so it happened.

But, business in tulips became suddenly very “hot” in 1635, because the tulips became infected by a virus (no one knew that) that caused all kinds of “flames” in red, or yellow, at these flowers, while the forms even became fanciful . Traders did smell a "fool-proof" get-rich-quick opportunity.

Thus "Tulipmania" was born.


Around 1636 bulbs were sold by weight, usually while they were still in the ground. All one had to do to become rich was, to plant these and wait.
Traders could earn as much as 60,000 florins (today approximately 47,000 dollars!) in a month — not a bad commission even by 21th century standards. In Amsterdam a house was sold for three tulip bulbs!
People were desperate to cash in on the bulb-trading frenzy! Small businesses were sold and family homes, farm animals, bedding, furnishings, even dowries, were traded.


These “tulips-on-fire” became also a beloved object for painters.
Around Amsterdam, there was a group of very skilled, still-life painters.
The craftsmanship of these painters reaches its highest level around 1650 and their art became a spell binding beauty. It would take a long time in our 21 th century to reach that same level again, if wished. It is far different than painting very precisely. That’s 19th century "naturalism".


What the painters in these days is concerned;
One of the painters was Judith Leyster; a female(!) master painter.
F134334?thread=3793850
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Leyster
Although she did paint mainly common people in her own town,like her master Frans Hals did, still her name is connected to tulips.

How?
Well, like modern man today, 2007, we first want to see in an add, what a product is all about, before we buy anything. The same in these historical days. A tulip is only flowering just a few weeks in a year. So these businessmen wanted to have “tulipbooks” to show what kind of flower a buyer could expect.

One of these tulipbooks is called “Judith Leyster Tulip Book”, although there are only two paintings in that book with her name, and only óne of these is really painted by herself; page 29. It’s in the Frans Hals Museum in Holland.

http://www.franshalsmuseum.collecti...%2073-52&lang=english&versie=adults

There are now in 2007 just about 20 tulipbooks from these days, spread all over the world now. Millions of dollars if you want one. About 20 million for one book.

And what the real still-life-flower-painters in those days is concerned who were fascinated by these so called tulips-on-fire, see other pictures at that same site, like
http://www.franshalsmuseum.collecti...ng=dutch&versie=adults&p=os%20I-23#
and
http://www.franshalsmuseum.collecti...ang=dutch&versie=adults&p=os%20I-24
P.S. The pictures can be enlarged.


To finish here the history of the tulip mania around 1635.
The bottom suddenly fell out of the market in 1637 when a gathering of bulb merchants could not get the usual inflated prices for their bulbs. Word quickly spread, and the market dramatically crashed.

Thousands of Dutch businessmen, including many of the country's leading economic power brokers, were ruined in less than two months' time — extremely rapid deployment of bad news for 1637!

How a virus becomes magical!



If one wants to get “some of that history” in their own garden, there are two ways.

1) Try to get the real bulbs that are directly linked to their historic variety from around 1635.
These are for sale (some of these in small quantities)
http://www.hortus-bulborum.nl/eng/home-english.html
and within an inner circle of farmers/ hybridizers in Holland.
But, these bulbs are without a virus, so rather "dull". It's forbidden to sell these with the virus.

Just in 1960 it became clear what kind of virus infected the tulips.
It is called "the mosaic virus" and it can be found in fruit trees.
If tulips grow under these, then they may jump also at the tulips...
and that's the way these preferred....


2) Dutch hybridizers have bred nice "look-a-like" flowers that duplicate the flushed look of the tulips during the mania around 1635.
The distinguishing feature: a light colored tulip with deep red, purple or ox-blood broken stripes, flushes or "flames."


Among many 20th century cultivars are some look-a-likes;

Red and white 'Union Jack',
Orange flushed with purple ‘Princes Irene’,
White and purple flecked 'Shirley',
Deep rose and white 'Sorbet',
and primrose yellow and raspberry ’Mona Lisa’.



For tourists,all these varieties of look-a-likes together are called “Rembrandt tulips”, although there is not one real cultivar with that official name and Rembrandt himself did not paint many flowers at all. It’s a useful tourist brand name - not dishonest - that gives tourists a helping hand when they have fallen in love by the beauty of still-life-tulip paintings from the old days, when even Dutch people were spelled by beauty, greed and passion.

Times may change, our human emotions don't.
We are just the same, as they were then.
All family of the same human species.



Greetings from Amsterdam.






P.S.
Other famous still-life-flower(!)- painters from these days are;

Adriaen Coorte painted from 1683 - 1707. city of Middelburg.

Jan van Huysum lived from 1682 - 1749. city of Amsterdam.

Rachel Ruysch (female) 1644 - 1750. city of Amsterdam.

Daniel Seghers 1590 - 1661. city of Antwerpen.

As in many countries; foreigners do know more about it’s art than it’s own inhabitants

Appearently the links about some paintings in the Frans halsmuseum

http://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/index_en.html

do not function after copying these in the story above.

http://www.franshalsmuseum.collectionconnection.nl/WDL/tour.aspx?t=w:%20bloemen%20en%20bloemengekte&p=otp%2073-52&lang=dutch&versie=adults

and

http://www.franshalsmuseum.collectionconnection.nl/WDL/tour.aspx?t=w:%20bloemen%20en%20bloemengekte&lang=dutch&versie=adults&p=os%20I-23

and

http://www.franshalsmuseum.collectionconnection.nl/WDL/tour.aspx?t=w:%20bloemen%20en%20bloemengekte&lang=dutch&versie=adults&p=os%20I-24

http://www.franshalsmuseum.collectionconnection.nl/WDL/tour.aspx?t=w:%20bloemen%20en%20bloemengekte&p=intro&lang=english&versie=adults

Murphy is having a good time.

http://www.franshalsmuseum.collectionconnection.nl/WDL/tour.aspx?t=w:%20bloemen%20en%20bloemengekte&p=otp%2073-52&lang=english&versie=adults

and

http://www.franshalsmuseum.collectionconnection.nl/WDL/tour.aspx?t=w:%20bloemen%20en%20bloemengekte&lang=english&versie=adults&p=os%20I-23

and

http://www.franshalsmuseum.collectionconnection.nl/WDL/tour.aspx?t=w:%20bloemen%20en%20bloemengekte&lang=english&versie=adults&p=os%20I-24

Sheer beauty (for me)

http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/RP-T-1950-266?page=3&lang=en&context_space=&context_id=



Rijksmuseum is in Amsterdam and has the largest stock of 17th century Dutch paintings in The Netherlands, besides many other arts and paintings, from different centuries.

The other day I wrote an e-mail to the owner of
http://tulip-fever.com/home/ which I once had contacted before.



Dear Sir,

This is a refreshing site; open, clear, calm, quality content.
I am born in Harlem and left when I was 18.
Around 2000 I hired a professional in genealogy and both we did research all my ancestors, who apparently lived mainly in Haarlem.

I just want to share some relevant information.
Adding, correcting, suggesting; mainly "sharing", but you may already know most of it, but a few details are commonly unknown when I think b.e. at the Judith Leyster Tulip Book and her own paintings.

1) About the so called "Rembrandt tulips".
Quote from my own story;
"To finish here the history of the tulip fury around 1635.
No one knew that in 1635 the tulips were infected by a virus. The "mosaic virus", that normally lives at fruit trees and apparently made a "journey" into the tulips that were growing around these trees. Tulips have always one of the two basic colours at the skin of the flower. Normally that is not visible. I have forgotten which 2 colours. Because of that virus, this normally hidden colour gets its way out and that created tulips with "flames"!
This virus has been finally detected in 1965 ! Three ages later on!

If one wants to get “some of that history” in his/her own garden, there are two ways.

a) Try to get the real bulbs that are directly linked to their historic variety from around 1635.
These are for sale (some of these and in small quantities)

http://www.hortus-bulborum.nl/eng/home-english.html


And also within the inner circle of hybridizers in Holland.
But, these bulbs are without a virus, so seem rather "dull". It's forbidden to sell these with the virus.


b) Dutch hybridizers have bred nice "look-a-like" flowers that duplicate the flushed look of the tulips during the mania around 1635.
The distinguishing feature: a light colored tulip with deep red, purple or ox-blood broken stripes, flushes or "flames."

Among many 20th century cultivars are look-a-likes as;

Red and white 'Union Jack',
Orange flushed with purple ‘Princes Irene’,
White and purple flecked 'Shirley',
Deep rose and white 'Sorbet',
And primrose yellow and raspberry ’Mona Lisa’
And more of such "a-likes" are available.


For tourists, all these varieties of look-a-likes together are called “Rembrandt tulips”, although there is not one real cultivar with that official name and Rembrandt himself did not paint many flowers/tulips at all.
It’s a useful tourist brand name - not dishonest - that gives tourists a helping hand when they have fallen in love by the beauty of still-life-tulip paintings from the old days, when even Dutch people were spelled by beauty, greed and passion.



2) Speaking of still-life-tulip paintings a few remarks;

a) You’ll know already the story about "Judith Leyster". To make a long story short, see;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Leyster

Why is her name connected to the tulip mania? Judith Leyster was born and raised in Haarlem (where she became master painter and married a master painter Jan Molenaer in Haarlem).

The so called “Tulip books” that were created in those days, were the only way to show potential buyers what they could expect, besides the three weeks that a tulip flower flourishes.

In 2007 there are still 20 tulip-books around the world. You want to buy one? 20.000.000 dollars each.

In the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem there is one such book and it’s called “Judith Leyster tulip book”.
See;
http://www.franshalsmuseum.collectionconnection.nl/WDL/wdl.aspx?lang=english&versie=adult
And click at; “Flower, flower mania”.
In that menu you will also find info about the “Judith Leyster Tulip Book”.
BUT the name is not what one would expect, because only two paintings in that Judith Leyster tulip book have her name on it.
Furthermore, around 2000 it was discovered at the FHMuseum/Haarlem
that only the painting at page 29 is really painted by her. (As you can see when you take a close look at the picture on line of the FHMuseum)
In the museum itself the book is open, behind glass, but at “page 29”.

At the website of the university of Wageningen (centre of the netherlands) there is a large info about tulips and their history.
But my main reason is this;

http://library.wur.nl/tulip/

At this page, you see the menu at the right side “Image books” with three links
http://library.wur.nl/desktop/tulp/cos/origineel/images/index.html

and http://www.nortonsimon.org/collections/browse_culture.asp?culture=Dutch&resultnum=9

And the one in the middle isn’t that important and only in Dutch.

The first of the three links also has the menu, where one can choose to download the whole book at once. The normal menu is page after page.
Anyhow, it’s so beautiful to see and also so sensitive to feel/see how people lived. Just like us, with our greed, passion and fascination for nature. It is nót the Judith Leyster tulip book.

2 b) I already mentioned “still life flower painters”.
I am just a social worker and not very skilled what art-history is concerned, but the first thing one discovers is, that Dutch people hardly know the still life (flower) paintings from around 1635.
The “cult” was mainly in Haarlem. It was far more than just “precise” 19th cent. “naturalism”.

Other famous Dutch still-life-flower-painters from these days are;

Adriaen Coorte painted from 1683 - 1707. c
Jan van Huysum lived from 1682 - 1749.
Rachel Ruysch (female) 1644 - 1750.
Daniel Seghers 1590 - 1661.



2 c) I’d like to finish by writing a few lines of other still-life-painters, (handful from Haarlem) in 17th century Holland.
What they created is sometimes a spell binding beauty ; extreme craftmanship what subject matters is concerned (a painter should make visible in a painting what was silk and what was satin. A lecture about that is found around 1850), combined with a great passion for life.
It’s different than naturalism.
Rich people in those days wanted these paintings, not only to show their richness, but also for the moralistic content of the painting. Mainly;
“How fragile mankind is”, or “life is very short”, etc. Also called;”vanitas”paintings.

I do like modern art very much like Karel Appel, Miró, etc.,
but this can capture my heart just as much ,as it does of thousands of tourists, who even know the námes of these painters, which is not common knowledge in The Netherlands
Ambrosius Bosschaert,

Pieter Claesz, (haarlem)
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/sk/z/sk-a-4646.z
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/claesz/index.html

Clara Peeters

Jan Davidsz de Heem

Willem Claesz Heda (Haarlem) and his son Gerrit Willemz. Heda.

http://rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/sk/z/sk-a-4830.z

http://rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/sk/z/sk-a-137.z

Balthasar van der Ast

See –if whished so – for some others

http://rijksmuseum.nl/zoeken/search.jsp?query=vanitas&lang=en&scope=collection

Because of that “handful from Haarlem” still-life painters around 1635.
I thought it is relevant to mention them. There are more names, but I finish here.

Greetings from Amsterdam

The reason of my e-mail (above) is a comment in the Guardian in 2005.

Quote Guardian;

"After five years of production delays, script rewrites and financial problems, a film adaptation of the bestselling novel Tulip Fever, by Deborah Moggach, is finally going ahead.
Last year, Tulip Fever became the highest profile victim of the government's closure of tax loopholes used by film investors. Now London-based production company Ruby Films has confirmed that the film will shoot in eastern Europe instead of the UK, thus making it affordable on a smaller budget. The BBC and the UK Film Council have both contributed cash"

End quote.

This is new (2007)

http://www.museumdezwartetulp.nl/ see English version