Rijksmuseum displays tulip book from the Six Collection
On view in the Rijksmuseum
Publication date: 16 March 2022 - 09:30
The rare 17th-century tulip book recently acquired by the Six Collection is on display at the Rijksmuseum until 23 May. The album contains 104 drawings of many varieties of tulip and several carnations. This book is even more exceptional because the sale value is given alongside the name of each flower, and it also contains two attached pricelists. It was possibly commissioned by a tulip cultivator or tulip bulb dealer. The high prices indicated for the flowers tie in directly with the so-called ‘tulip mania’ of the period. This was the first recorded speculative bubble in history, when trading without any actual exchange of goods led to prices soaring before crashing down in 1637. The references to value lend significant additional historical significance to the book.
It is fantastic that the support of more than a hundred benefactors means this book will stay in the Netherlands and is on show in the Rijksmuseum where everybody can come and see it.
Jan Six van Hillegom
Dr Nicolaes Tulp
The tulip book was at one point possibly owned by Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1593–1674), an Amsterdam physician and mayor who was also the father-in-law of Jan Six I. His name is also well known because of Rembrandt’s painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp. The book became the property of the Six family and was passed down from generation to generation until they decided to sell it in 2019. It is thanks to more than a hundred generous benefactors – 104 in fact, one for each tulip – that this important book could be acquired for the Six Collection.
Combined display
The book is being displayed alongside another tulip book from the Rijksmuseum collection: a luxurious vellum collector’s album. Showing these two extremely rare books together highlights their different purposes and underscores the historical value of the Six tulip book.
Bust and goblet
Two other objects from the Six Collection are being displayed with the books: an Artus Quellinus bust of Dr Nicolaes Tulp on a contemporaneous pedestal base, and a gilt silver goblet in the form of a tulip. The goblet was produced in the workshop of Johannes Lutma the Elder and the Younger. While Tulp is best known to us because of Rembrandt’s Anatomical Lesson, this bust highlights his role as a member of the ruling class rather than as a physician. The goblet, commissioned for Tulp as a gift to mark his retirement in 1652 from the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, reinforces the powerful symbolic connection between the mayor and the flower after which he named himself – the Dutch word tulp means ‘tulip’.
