The tulip was imported to Europe from Turkey and Persia in about 1560. In 1594 Carolus Clusius was the first in Holland to plant tulip bulbs in his garden in Leiden. Soon it became fasionable to collect and grow special varieties of tulips and other flowers, and prices fluctuated with the various fashions. In 1612 the dealer Emanuel Sweert published his Florilegium in Frankfurt, which is regarded as the first illustrated catalogue of flowers offered by a dealer. Flowers were sold at nurseries and in shops, but also at fairs, markets and later at auctions in all mayor Dutch cities. The bulbs were sold outside their blossoming season. Those interested could therefore not be sure what they were buying and in order to demonstrate to their prospective how the flowers from these bulbs would finally look. Bulb sellers therefore commissioned drawings of the flowers. The earliest dated examples of such drawings in Holland are those by Rembrandt's master Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburgh (1571-1638) of 1628 in an album now in the library of the Economisch-Historisch Instituut, Amsterdam. Other artists like Jacob Marrell, Anthony Claesz., Pieter Holsteyn the Younger, Judith Leyster and Balthasar van der Ast are also known to have done such drawings. The earliest albums with drawings of flowers date from about 1630. Apart from signatures, the names of the flowers, their weight and their prices were often inscribed on drawings. Weight was indicated in 'asen'. 100 asen being the equivalent of about 4.8 grams.
Initially few people could afford to buy and grow the fashionable but rare and expensive tulip bulbs. When more and cheaper varieties became available on the market, prices initially went down. In 1634-5 demand increased rapidly, and the speculative trading of tulips became pure 'windhandel', a paper gamble, with many people dealing only with paper claims instead of tulip bulbs. By 1636 prices had reached astronomic levels, and payments were often made with goods rather than money. Apparently Jan van Goyen took part in the speculations, agreeing to pay 1,900 guilders and deliver pictures by Salomon van Ruysdael and himself in exchange for ten tulip bulbs, but in 1656 he died without having settled these debts. The highest recorded price was 30,000 guilders paid for three bulbs of the Semper Augustus tulip in 1637, when the grandest houses on the Amsterdam canals cost some 10,000 guilders. The opposition to dealing grew, and in 1637 Pieter Nolpe published an allegorical print satirizing the tulip trade (Hollstein XIV, no. 55). The design for this print was sold in these Rooms, 21 November 1989, lot 34, and is now in an Amercian private collection. A painting attributed to Jan Brueghel the Younger in the Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem, shows monkeys dealing with tulips and tulip bulbs (S. Segal, M. Rooding, De Tulp en de kunst, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam/Zwolle, 1994, pp. 84-5, fig. 16, no. S2).
As the bulbs grew and would soon flower, many bought the claims only to resell these as soon as possible. On 2 or 3 February 1637 prices first went down in Haarlem, causing everyone to be unable to sell their claims. By then, an auction of tulip bulbs and seeds of other flowers had already been scheduled to take place in the new shooting range at Alkmaar, northwest of Amsterdam, on 5 February 1637. The present lot was the only catalogue with drawings of the tulips and other flowers that would grow from the bulbs and seeds offered. The sale was on behalf of the children of the deceased innkeeper of the old Alkmaar shooting range, Wouter Bartholomeusz. Winckel (d. 1636), and was witnessed by the board of the local orphanage. According to a document in the municipal archives of Alkmaar, on 16 July 1636 Louris Bartelmies Goutsmit and Philips de Klerk, uncles of Winckel's children, had requested the board of the local orphanage to take custody of the tulip bulbs from Winckel's estate. On 6 August two members of the city council, Jacob van der Meer and Jacob van der Geest, were appointed guardians of the children. Their task was also to clear the ownership of the tulip bulbs that had been partly Winckel's joint property. On 3 December 1636 the decision to auction Winckel's property was taken. All those involved in the tulip bulb market came, and at the end of the day it became clear that the market had performed strongly for a last time: 90,995 guilders had been paid for the bulbs and seeds offered. A Viceroy, always one of the most expensive bulbs, weighing 658 asen, was the top lot of the sale at 4,200 guilders. Another Viceroy, weighing only 410 asen made 3,000 guilders, while 19 other bulbs made 1,000 guilders or more. The cheapest lot of the sale was 'Swymende Ian Gerritsz' of 80 asen, selling for only 51 guilders. The results of the sale were published in a hand-out leaflet which was used by the supporters of the market in an attempt to revive trust in this, while opponents of the trade saw it as a further testimony to a dwindling market (E.H. Krelage, De Pamfletten van de Tulpenwindhandel, 1636-1637, Amsterdam, 1942, pp. 140-3, and Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland, De Tulpomanie van 1636-1637, Amsterdam, 1942, pp. 80-1). As pointed out by Krelage (De Pamfletten van de Tulpenwindhandel, 1636-1637, p. 12), the prices of the Alkmaar sale are also recorded on drawings of the same tulips in other albums. These prices were the last evidence of the high level of trading in the tulip bulb market, which completely collapsed soon after the Alkmaar sale. The poorer speculators, who had hoped for an easy opportunity to become rich, suffered particularly badly from the crash that followed. The Government's legislation in the following years could not prevent the majority of the investors losing most of their money.
Some forty tulip albums survive: this lot is of exceptional interest as a key record of the first speculative market that collapsed.