The Dutch Tulip: heritage cultivars

From my garden: Zilver Standaard Dutch tulip, 1760

One of the latest Dutch heritage tulips to surface in my garden is also one of my favourites: the Zilver Standaard, a Dutch tulip which hails from 1760. It is part of my heritage tulip collection spanning the 16th to the 19th centuries – all sourced from the friendly conservation team at the Hortus Bulborum in Limmen, Holland. For an overview of my collection click here to see the tulips page.

It is a relatively strong tulip; flowering a bit more vigourously and longer than the earlier 17th century tulips. It has a yellow base and white petals which show red flames. Some tulips have more red flames, some fewer, so there is quite a variety within the same cultivar. While very beautiful, this cultivar should not be confused with the flamed tulips of the 1600s, which showed the famous and popular ‘broken’ colour that was due to infection with a mosaic virus. This, unknown at the time, weakened the ‘truly broken’ tulip plant and eventually pushed it to extinction.

Only one truly broken 17th century Dutch tulip cultivar remains today: the Zomerschoon (1620). This tulip appears to have developed tolerance. I was able to get hold of 4 Zomerschoon bulbs last year – the buds are now showing and I’ll show you a photo when, after 4 years of waiting for this tulip, I can finally paint it.

Update: The Zomerschoon had flowered and is now appearing in my paintings:

View paintings here: dutchfinepaintings.com/still-life-paintings/