From today on display in Museum de Zwarte Tulp: Tulip fever – The true story. The exhibition sheds a different light on the 17th-century tulip madness. Still: ‘A tulip like that, what is that? How can such a flower bulb bring about so much?’
The bulb fields between Hillegom and Lisse are deserted. Straw and plastic cover the fields to protect the bulbs from freezing cold. But come back again in April, when rows of colorful daffodils, tulips and hyacinths shine here. This is the heart of the Bollenstreek. Still. Despite the fact that flower bulbs are now also grown in the north of North Holland, Drenthe and the Flevopolder.
There are even bulb fields in South American Chile. But trade goes through the Netherlands and most exporters are still in Hillegom and Lisse. Also here since 1860: the Royal General Association for Flower Bulb Culture (KAVB), which conducts research into diseases and making flower bulb cultivation more sustainable.
Origin in Central Asia
The fact that this coastal strip between Haarlem and Leiden became the center is due to the soil. “Flower bulbs grow so well here because of the calcareous, poor sandy soil. It is also permeable to water, especially tulips do not like it wet. And the cool sea air plays a role. Tulips are native mountain flowers from the high Pamir Mountains in Central Asia. The tulip bulbs came to the West with the Turkish peoples,” says Henk Looijesteijn.
Looijesteijn is a historian and the son of a flower bulb grower. Together with curator Annemarie Vels Heijn he wrote the book that accompanies the exhibition Tulip Fever – The True Story in the Black Tulip Museum. Vels Heijn has received a few crates of special tulip varieties from a grower because of the exhibition, and is now curious about the tulips that will soon emerge. This brings us straight to the enchantment of the tulip: you never know exactly what will emerge from the ground. “Lefeber already said it: Mother Nature ultimately decides,” says the curator.
Inside, in the attic, DW Lefeber’s study has been imitated. An icon in the flower bulb trade, born in Lisse in 1894. He traveled the world to sell Dutch flower bulbs, an adventurous affair in those days. He became a famous breeder, especially in the field of tulip hybrids. The red ‘Madame Lefeber’ is one of the best known of the Fosteriana tulip variety.
Botanical Revolution
A step further back in time. In the sixteenth century, European fleets brought plants with them from their first voyages of discovery. These were potatoes and tomatoes, but also exotic ornamental plants. As a result, interest grew and a botanical revolution arose: not only doctors and pharmacists were interested in plants because of their beneficial effects, botanists were also at the forefront when ships entered.
Universities laid out botanical gardens, in Leiden physician and botanist Carolus Clusius (1526-1609) headed the Hortus botanicus. His passion was enormous. Seamen gave him plants from other parts of the world to study, and an unknown type of flower from a diplomat friend in the Ottoman Empire. It was a tulip. In the Leiden Hortus he grew the first large tulip collections in Europe. But he was a scientist, not a trader.
Bulb cultivation and trade mainly originated in Haarlem. Because of that suitable sandy soil and the available money thanks to the flourishing cloth and beer industry. Looijesteijn: “At first, owning tulips was a hobby for those who could afford it. Just as they also collected exotic shells, porcelain and precious stones. This is how the trade in tulips came about and it became interesting to become a bulb grower. One of the first bulb growers was a former gardener of such a wealthy collector.”
‘Tulip Mania’
The flower – especially the special, spotted varieties – became so popular that it became ‘feverish’. Prices were pushed up, and in later times people spoke of a ‘tulip mania’. Example: in Haarlem, a pound of Switser tulips rose from 125 guilders on December 31, 1636 to 1,500 guilders on February 3, 1637. Shortly afterwards, trade imploded and the boom came to an abrupt halt.
It is seen as the first wave of speculation, a bubble, in world history. “You read the wildest stories about this period. That traders jumped into the ditch out of desperation and about dramatic bankruptcies. But the truth is less extreme. I read the book Tulipmania by the American writer Anne Goldcar. She has done wonderful historical research and has come to the conclusion that there was no mania or madness.”
Yes there was a bubble, yes there was a lot of speculation. It is therefore an exceptional trade: you buy something that is still in the ground and only get your hands on it in June, after it has been dug up. How do the bulbs get out of the ground? How many are there? The bulbs are often already resold. That sense of uncertainty contributed to the bubble. “But high sales were canceled, many did not go bankrupt at all. That is why the exhibition is also called Tulip Fever. It was a febrile convulsion that subsided, not a madness. Trade recovered after a while.”
When the English, more natural gardens became popular from the eighteenth century, bulb cultivation expanded further. Then the bulb fields arise and the more ordinary tulip varieties appear in the ordinary gardens and in vases on the table.
Vulnerable and bulb cultivation under a magnifying glass
The sick seeker has long been a familiar sight in the blooming bulb fields. With a bent back, the specialist searches for sick tulips, hyacinths and daffodils to remove. The flowers of healthy tulips are cut off after three to four weeks, the bulb with foliage remains in the ground. For example, mother bulbs can clone themselves and produce smaller balls, called klisters. In subsequent years, they can grow into full-fledged tulip bulbs. That is the profit for the grower, and an old process.
Looijestein: “Bulb cultivation is changing somewhat in other areas. When I was young and helped my father, in the early 1970s on our land in the Anna Paulownapolder, a lot of plant protection products were used. People have been trying to bring that back for decades. I used to not hear frogs around our farmhouse, now I do. I’m no expert, and conservation organizations are critical, but one of the things people have been doing for years is trying to grow tulip bulbs that are less vulnerable to mold and disease. This is done on a large scale, but also by bulb growers themselves, in their own, simple laboratories.”
Large-scale, environmentally friendly bulb cultivation requires research and adjustments. It is difficult, tulips are fragile, but there is movement, Looijestein notes. Whereas pesticides used to be used to combat nematodes, now pieces of land are flooded once every few years to kill the microscopic worms that eat into the bulbs.
The tulip is also fashion sensitive, another form of vulnerability. “You cannot grow the same tulip endlessly. At some point people don’t want that one color anymore. But it takes a number of years before a newly grown tulip is proven stable and can be traded.”
Dusty barns
What more can be said about the heroic journey of the tulip? It started in the high mountains and became our calling card through the Ottoman Empire, European botanical gardens, lawns of Haarlem villas and full bulb fields along the coast. “That the tulip has become much more common on the one hand and on the other hand has been one of the most popular bulb flowers since 1800. That is of course special and is mainly due to the many varieties,” says Looijesteijn.
“Furthermore, I also envision dusty sheds when I think of the tulip. That’s because of all the summers I helped out in the fields. In the evening in bed I could still hear the sorting machine, doof, doof, doof, and before my mind’s eye I still saw the bulbs springing up. Writing this book made the uniqueness of the tulip clear to me.”
The exhibition tells the story of Tulip Fever in chapters with a print room, props and the story in pictures. Vels Heijn: “It is therefore not a story of wild hysteria and madness. But I think what we tell is just as much fun. It remains fascinating: a tulip like that, what is that? How can such a flower bulb bring about so much?”
‘Tulip Fever – The True Story’ can be seen from 18 March to 27 August in Museum de Zwarte Tulp, museumdezwartetulp.nl