Tulip – Hendrik Leffert Meyling after Paul Theodor van Brussel, c. 1794

450

Tulip (plate 9)Copper engraving by Hendrik Leffert Meyling after a drawing by Paul Theodor van Brussel (1754-1795), first published in 1794 by Jan Barend Elwe as part of his “Nederlandsch Bloemwerk“. With original hand colouring. Size (plate mark): approx. 19,5 x 15,5 cm.

The breeding and distribution of tulips, hyacinths and auriculas was the most lucrative area of horticulture during much of the eighteenth century, and by the closing decades the Dutch were the acknowledged leaders in this field. The “Nederlandsch Bloemwerk” work was produced as a sampler of the wide range of varieties that were available, but it also takes a backward glance at the art of the gardener and the flower-painter of a century and a half earlier. Many of the illustrations are close copies of the plates from the “Variae ac multiformes florum species” (published in Paris around 1660) by Nicolas Robert (1614-1685).

This is a print that must have been published after 1794. The insects in the illustration from the “Nederlandsch Bloemwerk” were erased from the copper plate, and the numbering was altered.

Price: Euro 450,-