Four Tulips (detail), about 1635–1645, Jacob Marrel. Translucent and opaque watercolor with selectively applied gum over metalpoint (drawing) and pen and brown ink (inscriptions), on prepared parchment. Getty Museum
Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the 17th-Century Netherlands
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In the 1630s the Netherlands was gripped by tulipmania: a speculative fever for tulips unprecedented in scale and, as popular history would have it, folly. The story of how otherwise sensible citizens spent all they had on tulip bulbs is today viewed as a prime example of the gullibility of crowds and the dangers of financial speculation. Historian Anne Goldgar clears away some of these myths, revealing how tulipmania reflected deep anxieties about the transformation of Dutch society in the 17th century.
Anne Goldgar is the Garrett and Anne Van Hunnick Chair in European History at the University of Southern California.