Three parrot tulips (purple, red and white)

These drawings are close to a group of 56 sheets in the same technique which were with Robert Noortman in 1987 (S. Segal, Tulips by Anthony Claesz. 56 seventeenth century watercolour drawings by Anthony Claesz. (ca. 1607/08-1649), Maastricht 1987). Segal attributed the group to Claesz. on the basis of a comparison with a drawing on vellum, signed 'A.C. fc.', which is part of an album of flower drawings, mostly by Pieter Holsteyn II, from 1640-1641 in the Lindley Library, Royal Horticultural Society, London (inv. 118; ibid., fig. 1). The signature of that drawing can be compared to a flower painting signed and dated 'Ant. Claeß 1642' (ibid., fig. 2). More recently however, the attribution of the group to Claesz. has been rejected by Frans Willemse, who suggested an alternative attribution to the so-called 'Tulip Painter' (Het mysterie van de tulpenschilder, Sassenheim 2005, pp. 60-1, 191-2).

We are grateful to Peter Schatborn for his assistance in cataloguing these drawings.