Study of a Tulip (Wit en root boode) (c. 1645): Art, History and Details

Study of a Tulip (Wit en root boode) (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, means "white and red messenger."

Object facts

• Title: Study of a Tulip (Wit en root boode)
• Date: c. 1645
• Creator attribution: Pieter Holsteyn II (Dutch, c.1612–1673)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Point of brush and transparent and opaque watercolors with traces of graphite and gum glazing on antique laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 31.2 x 20.6 cm (12 5/16 x 8 1/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - Dutch
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2020.130

A detail from the museum

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

Collection credit

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• Scallen, Catherine B. "Holsteyn and Prins." In The Keithley Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art, edited by Heather Lemonedes Brown, 32-37, 44-45. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022.

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.