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This floral still-life is one of Johannes Bosschaert's earliest and most original works showing tulips growing in their natural environment and surrounded by insects and a frog.
Tulips are native to Turkey. The botanist Carolus Clusius, professor of botany at Leiden University from 1593, brought the first tulip bulbs to the Netherlands as floral curiosities. Within a few decades, the tulips had become the most fashionable of flowers. Experimentation produced countless new varieties, and the expanding market, combined with speculation, led to widespread tulip mania. Towards the end of the 1620s, tulip bulbs were literally worth their weight in gold, but then in 1637 the bubble burst. Many people were ruined but fortunately the tulip did not disappear from Holland, and it is still a symbol of the country today.
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