Study of a Tulip (Gemarmerde van Jasper) (c. 1645): Art, History and Details

Study of a Tulip (Gemarmerde van Jasper) (c. 1645) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pieter Holsteyn II (Dutch, c.1612–1673).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This image of a tulip was made as part of a tulip book used as a grower’s marketing tool during the so-called tulip mania, a speculative bubble in 17th-century Holland, when ten tulip bulbs could cost more than a stately Amsterdam canal house. The striations on the tulip, which were caused by a virus in the bulb, made it especially valuable. Pieter Holsteyn II was one of many artists in the Netherlands at the time who specialized in botanical illustration. This tulip's Dutch name, inscribed on the sheet, translates roughly to "marriage of jasper stone."

Object facts

• Title: Study of a Tulip (Gemarmerde van Jasper)
• Date: c. 1645
• Creator attribution: Pieter Holsteyn II (Dutch, c.1612–1673)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: brush and watercolor in crimson, gray, and green over traces of charcoal on antique laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 32 x 21.1 cm (12 5/8 x 8 5/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Dutch
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2019.5

A detail from the museum

In 17th-century Holland, some tulip bulbs were as expensive as a stately Amsterdam canal house!

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• RKD # 218032, (Rijksbureau Kunstdocumentatie, The Hague)
• Segal, Sam, in Van der Goes/Jenzen et al. Tulipomanie: die Tulpe in der Kunst des 16. Und 17. Jahrhunderts. Dresden: Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, 2004

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.