Tulip Craze in Amsterdam
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The
Owl
Vol.
2, Issue 38
September 25,
2008
Baltimore, Maryland
Dear Inquiring Traveler,
Reading the news recently, you’d think that financial crises were a fairly modern phenomenon. But you only need to go beyond the 20th century to be reminded of other examples of speculation and collapse. The South Sea Bubble was one, but what of the great Bulb Crash? In just a few years, tulip bulbs reached astronomical prices, and, not surprisingly, when the bubble burst, many a speculator was left penniless.
Read on to find out what happened—and discover a museum dedicated to this elegant flower.
Regards,
Editor,
The Owl
Tiptoe Through the Tulips (part 1)
by Elise Warner
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Strolling along Amsterdam’s charming canals and crossing the city’s many bridges (there are more than a thousand), I pass by house-boats filled with vivid blossoms, and one sheltering stray cats. Friendly herons cruise the canals and one poses for my camera. I snack on herring bought at a neighborhood stand and admire narrow houses (topped with peaked, stepped, pointed, neck or bell gables), each with a crane pulley to lift furniture.
I’m in the Jordaan area, thought to be named for the French jardin (garden). Most of the alleyways and canals in this section are named after flowers and I visualize fields of tulips before I step through the door of Amsterdam’s Tulip Museum and meet the museum’s director Sjoerd van Eeden who brings the amazing history of the tulip to life.
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From Asia to Holland
A relative of the lily, the tulip did not originate in Holland but grew, wild and free, in the central Asian highlands. Brought by sultans to Istanbul from Persia, the tulip thrived in their gardens, inspiring the admiration of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, a Viennese ambassador. Busbecq then introduced the tulip to Europe. Flowers grown from the sample the ambassador sent to Vienna became enormously popular. Before long bulbs were carried to many parts of Europe including Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, and Prague. The wealthy threw themselves into this new pastime and western European gardens blazed with the flower by 1630. The tulip had become a symbol of prosperity, bought and sold by specialists and academics.
The botanist Carolus Clusius introduced the bulb to Holland. He was the director of the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, the oldest botanical garden in Europe, in the 1590s. With a background in medicine and a passion for medicinal plants, he was one of the first to grow tulips, crossbreed and propagate them with different species. Displaying his sizeable collection, he presented bulbs for sale in 1591. The price Clusius asked for the bulbs was high, so high that no one was surprised when the bulbs disappeared from his garden. Whatever happened, the citizens of Leiden soon after began growing tulips of their own, a hobby that to this day remains a principal industry in Holland.
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The Tulip Bubble
The Ottoman sultans thought the flower resembled an upside down turban called dulban or tuliban and the name developed into tulip. By the 17th century, many outstanding selections were being developed. They were desired for their elegance, delicacy, varied colors and rarity—and, not least, for the social standing they represented.
A tulip frenzy soon swept through the Netherlands. Outrageous speculation raised the price of some bulbs to that of a house. Traders earned as much as 60,000 florins (approximately $61,000) in a month. Then, in 1637, the market crashed and financial disaster hit. Bulbs started selling for no more than an onion. In less than two months, thousands of Dutch businessmen were bankrupt. The fortunes that tulips had built vaporized almost overnight.
But the bulbs remained and many of the varieties that inspired speculation are still around. Take, for example, the Lac van Rijn, a delicate white and burgundy crown-like tulip, that traded for outrageous sums in the 1630s—but can be purchased today for about $8 a bulb.
When You Go
The Amsterdam Tulip
Museum A 15-minute walk from Central Station, or take trams 13 or 17 or buses 21, 170, 171 or 172 to Wester Kerk. It ’s close to antique shops, restaurants and cafes, and to: — Anne Frank House, Prinsengracht 263; open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission 7.50 euro. — Wester Kerk (West Church) A prominent Dutch Renaissance church known for its architecture with the highest spire (topped by gilt yellow and blue imperial crown) of any church in Amsterdam. Completed in 1638, its bells are said to have comforted Anne Frank. Rembrandt is buried here. On Prinsengracht 281. Open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday to Friday, April to September.
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