I think, therefore I Amsterdam: Tulip Fever
Series in which I offer a new take on an old Dutch classic, part 1.
Charlie with innocently positioned tulip
Songs possess an uncanny power over us. They can sway hearts, lovers, and, on occasion, entire peoples. When it comes to the Dutch, one song in particular has the ability to move virtually any denizen of the land of cheese and windmills (those who claim otherwise are, objectively, not to be trusted): Tulips from Amsterdam. The sing-along star of any happening, it sets the mood of a postcard-perfect scene, with lyrics celebrating tulips, spring, love – and the Dutch tendency to show, not tell, as expressed in the final line: what my lips can’t express, tulips from Amsterdam will say.
The song is at once complete kitsch and significant cultural heritage: playful, sentimental, and deeply rooted in the collective imagination. Whenever I hear it, something stirs. I find myself singing along, hips swaying, tapping into some strange archive of memories that I experience, temporarily, as my own. And – most importantly for the subject matter at hand – it played a significant role in forging the city’s international identity and its now-inextricable link with, you guessed it: tulips.
But did you know that this song originated not as a Dutch song, but as a German Schlager tune? A singer who had just visited the tulip fields at the famous Keukenhof felt, well, inspired. Only a few years later was it adapted into Dutch, and set to a melody loosely inspired by a Tchaikovsky’s ‘Flower Waltz’ from The Nutcracker. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good waltz? The song, however, is not the only thing that didn’t actually originate in the Netherlands – for neither did the tulips.
Postcards from the Ottoman Empire
The tulip does call the mountainous regions of Central Asia (modern-day Kazakhstan and surrounding areas) its home, where it was cultivated by the Ottoman Empire in what’s now Turkey. Even the name tulip isn’t Dutch, and probably comes from the Persian word dulband (turban), because the flower’s shape reminded people of the cloth’s winding. Physical bulbs arrived in the Netherlands in the late 16th century via trade routes and botanical collections, and the flowers did feel immediately at home in the Dutch climate (as opposed to yours truly) and soil. But tulips from Amsterdam? Not exactly.
But that didn’t stop them from becoming an instant status symbol back in the day, or from being virtually omnipresent today: bouquets of tulips, tulip-inspired souvenirs, and bags full of tulip bulbs are sold on every corner of the city of Amsterdam. And the nearby tourist favorite, Keukenhof, is not just popular with the Germans: it attracts a whopping 1.4 million visitors annually from all over the world.
Before I suggest some other, less overwhelming ways to get acquainted with Amsterdam’s floral symbol, let me catch you up on some more historical intrigue:
The Bulb that Burst
Painting ‘Allegory on Tulipmania’ by Jan Brueghel the Younger 1640
In contrast to the tulip, modern-day capitalism does have its roots in Dutch land. In the early 1600s, when tulip bulbs were first brought to Dutch soil, the Netherlands was a global trade powerhouse through the Dutch East India Company, also the first publicly traded corporation. This era marked the advent of stock trading: people would invest, for the first time in history, in small parts of actual trading ships. This coincided with a growing middle class, many of whom had disposable income, and an unprecedented hunger for luxury goods, which had until then only been available to the very few. As the first “ordinary people” gained access to speculative markets, tulips became a perfect object of utter desire: exotic and rare, limited in supply, visually striking, seasonal, and conveniently pocket-sized.
Tulip mania, or tulip fever, enters the scene.
And we all know fever is, well, quite infectious. Everyone caught the tulip bug, enthralled by this new object of maddening desire.
At first, tulips were traded in small circles among botanists and collectors, but then the so-called windhandel (“trading in air”) emerged: contracts to buy tulips at a future date before the bulbs had even been lifted from the ground. That is, people paid down payments for the right to purchase bulbs in spring at an agreed price – essentially the emergence of a futures market. And these contracts began to change hands multiple times before a single bulb ever bloomed, inflating prices without any physical tulips being exchanged. Historians later declared this the first ever recorded speculative bubble in market history. A grand, floral bubble – and very Dutch.
To illustrate: at one point, the rare Semper Augustus could fetch a price comparable to an actual canal house in the city center. There’s even a documented case where a single bulb sold for the equivalent of twelve acres of land.
Of course, when the whole thing collapsed in early 1637 – after buyers failed to show up at auctions in Haarlem – panic spread. But most of the financial damage was tied up in futures contracts rather than actual bulb deliveries, and many debts were never actually enforced. In Dutch there’s a saying which translates to: the soup is never eaten as hot as it is served, a reference to the idea that things are usually not quite as bad as they initially seem to be. This legal soft landing also meant that broader economic damage was contained, though a good number of reputations (and fortunes) were not.
The free market flower
A free market flower on the bed ;)
Although the tulip did not originate in the Netherlands, it became deeply intertwined with the country’s history as patron of accumulation. Our country is often regarded as the first market-based economy, preceding England, which later expanded the model through industrialization. Tulips, then, serve not as a symbol of national origin, but as an emblem of a new political economy: capitalism.
And it is through them that we can grasp some of the distinct developments at the time which still signify late capitalism today. Stay with me:
As an exemplary instance of the commodification of beauty, she seduced the Dutch with her vibrant colors and interesting patterns.
She then set in motion a trend of the financialization of goods, as futures contracts suddenly turned a flower into an abstract financial instrument.
Moreover, the focus shifted from planting tulips to flipping contracts, inaugurating the phenomenon of speculation detached from use.
Never before did the nouveau riche merchant class test the boundaries of wealth creation outside of physical trade to this extent – a distinct feature of the capitalist risk-reward appetite we’ve come to know so well.
And, lastly, her price came to be driven by collective belief instead of intrinsic value, introducing to the scene a whole new kind of market psychology and a matching consumer subjectivity. In the 388 years since the tulip bubble burst, we've learned a great deal about how people behave when the promise of profit is high. What we arguably haven’t quite mastered, however, is controlling our own behavior.
Seeking: Floral Arrangement: Tulip-inspired dates
Hans Bollingier – Stilleven met Bloemen, Rijksmuseum
Knowing about the tulip’s history – from its transnational beginnings in the Ottoman Empire to becoming the object of the world’s first speculative bubble in 17th-century Holland – might just transform them from ‘pretty flowers’ into cultural artefacts. So, the next time you see a tulip, may you no longer look simply at some petals, but instead be reminded of a centuries-old story of ambition, desire, risk, and the business of beauty.
And why not stage ourselves in the long arc of history and indulge a little while we’re at it? Instead of only visiting the tulip fields of the Keukenhof, which tend to get very crowded, I have some ideas on making your quest for tulips more intimate and bespoke. Below, I’ve gathered some suggestions for very effective and enjoyable ways to catch the fever. Together, of course.