Dutch School, early-18th century.

Dutch School, early-18th century.

TULIP ALBUM - A manuscript flower album containing 151 drawings of tulips in bodycolour. [Holland, early-18th century]. 4 (290 x 204mm). 151 drawings on paper, heightened with gum arabic. Contemporary vellum over pasteboard, titled horizintally along spine in contemporary manuscript 'Vera Tulipam Effigies' (corners worn, small splits to joints). Provenance: early note in an unidentified hand 'Lord Lovat's sale).

AN INTERESTING ALBUM, PROBABLY USED BY A MERCHANT TO MARKET HIS BULBS, AND HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT AS A RECORD OF CULTIVARS THAT MAY NO LONGER BE IN CULTIVATION. The album concentrates on 'bybloemen' varieties and shows a number of examples of most of the available shapes of blooms. The tulip trade was trans-European and by the 18th-century had recovered from the reaction against the species in the mid-17th century caused by the excesses of the earlier tulipomania period. The album shows the result of two hundred years of cultivation of the species: a vast range of cultivars were available when compared to the single species flowering in the garden of Heinrich Herwart of Augsburg in 1559 (the first recorded instance of the flower blooming in Europe). During the 18th century the Dutch remained pre-emminent as tulip breeders but there was also strong interest in France and elsewhere in Europe.The present album offers no clues internally as to its nationality, but the slightly impressionistic style of the images allied with the northern-European appearance of the binding would seem to favour the Netherlands as the country of origin.