{"product_id":"basilius_besler__tulipa","title":"Tulipa – Basilius Besler, 1613","description":"\u003ch2\u003eTulipa by Basilius Besler, 1613\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFramed Canvas Art\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis celebrated plate from Besler's monumental \u003cem\u003eHortus Eystettensis\u003c\/em\u003e presents five tulip specimens arranged across a cream ground with the precision of a natural philosopher and the sensibility of a painter. \u003cstrong\u003eTwo fully opened blooms anchor the composition\u003c\/strong\u003e: a \u003cstrong\u003edeep crimson tulip at upper left\u003c\/strong\u003e, its petals flared and richly ruffled, and a \u003cstrong\u003ebroad golden-yellow tulip at upper right\u003c\/strong\u003e, its outer petals streaked with saffron and pale cream. Between them, a smaller \u003cstrong\u003estar-form bloom in burgundy and gold\u003c\/strong\u003e opens flat to reveal its interior structure, while a \u003cstrong\u003epartially closed yellow tulip\u003c\/strong\u003e at far right and a diminutive \u003cstrong\u003erose-pink bud\u003c\/strong\u003e at far left complete the quintet. Each specimen is rendered with its full bulb, root system, and strap-like leaves intact, so the eye travels from subterranean root to petal tip in an unbroken botanical account. The Latin inscriptions beneath each plant — identifying species including \u003cem\u003eTulipa ex purpura rosea pernica\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTulipa aurei coloris\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eTulipa lutea maculis rubens\u003c\/em\u003e — confirm that this is science rendered as art, each name an act of taxonomy as deliberate as the engraver's line. The tonal range moves from the near-black shadows pooling at the base of the leaves to the luminous white ground that gives each color its full intensity, with the warm ochres and crimsons reading as almost jewel-like against that neutral field.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003eTulipa\u003c\/strong\u003e plate was engraved for the \u003cem\u003eHortus Eystettensis\u003c\/em\u003e, published in Nuremberg in 1613 under the direction of Basilius Besler, an apothecary and botanist commissioned by Prince-Bishop Johann Konrad von Gemmingen to document the extraordinary garden at Willibaldsburg Castle in Eichstätt, Bavaria. The garden, one of the largest and most ambitious in northern Europe at the turn of the seventeenth century, contained plants gathered from four continents, and Besler spent sixteen years producing the 367 folio plates that would constitute the finished work. The tulip plates are among the most sought after in the volume, because they document the height of \u003cem\u003etulipomania\u003c\/em\u003e — that extraordinary speculative fever that gripped Europe in the early seventeenth century, when individual bulbs of broken or feathered tulips commanded prices equivalent to fine houses. Besler's renderings capture precisely the \u003cem\u003eflamed\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eparrot\u003c\/em\u003e forms that drove collectors to financial ruin, preserving a visual record of varieties since lost to time and disease. The \u003cem\u003eHortus Eystettensis\u003c\/em\u003e was produced in two editions, a hand-colored version for the prince-bishop's court and an uncolored edition for wider scholarly distribution; the hand-colored plates, of which this is an example, are considered among the finest examples of \u003cem\u003escientific illustration\u003c\/em\u003e produced during the Northern European \u003cem\u003eRenaissance\u003c\/em\u003e and have been held in the collections of the British Library, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOur archival \u003cem\u003egiclee\u003c\/em\u003e process on museum-grade cotton canvas is particularly well-suited to a plate of this character, because so much of its power resides in transitions that flatten immediately under commercial printing: the subtle graduation from the \u003cstrong\u003enear-black midrib of each leaf into the layered blue-green of the blade\u003c\/strong\u003e, the way the crimson petals shift from near-opaque scarlet at the edges to a translucent rose where the light passes through, and the fine engraved hatching that gives the bulb skins their papery, fibrous texture. Our source material is drawn from high-resolution museum scans that have been digitally restored to recover the full color accuracy of the original hand-applied pigments, correcting the yellowing and tonal compression that afflict degraded archival reproductions. The result preserves the white ground's brightness — essential to the plate's luminosity — while holding the full depth of the darkest leaf shadows. The ornate composite frame, finished in warm antique gold, echoes the ochres and saffron of the \u003cstrong\u003egolden-yellow blooms\u003c\/strong\u003e and situates this sixteenth-century botanical document exactly as it would have appeared in a cabinet of curiosities or a princely library.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CanvasClassics","offers":[{"title":"Small (21 x 19) \/ Gold","offer_id":49073648369899,"sku":"1970211","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small (21 x 19) \/ Silver","offer_id":49073648402667,"sku":"1970212","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small (21 x 19) \/ Dark Bronze","offer_id":49073648435435,"sku":"1970213","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium (31 x 27) \/ Gold","offer_id":49073648468203,"sku":"1970221","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium (31 x 27) \/ Silver","offer_id":49073648500971,"sku":"1970222","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium (31 x 27) \/ Dark Bronze","offer_id":49073648533739,"sku":"1970223","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large (36 x 31) \/ Gold","offer_id":49073648566507,"sku":"1970231","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large (36 x 31) \/ Silver","offer_id":49073648599275,"sku":"1970232","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large (36 x 31) \/ Dark Bronze","offer_id":49073648632043,"sku":"1970233","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate (47 x 40) \/ Gold","offer_id":49073648664811,"sku":"1970241","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate (47 x 40) \/ Silver","offer_id":49073648697579,"sku":"1970242","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate (47 x 40) \/ Dark Bronze","offer_id":49073648730347,"sku":"1970243","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0762\/8606\/6923\/files\/basilius_besler__tulipa__small__gold.jpg?v=1784501947","url":"https:\/\/canvasclassics.shop\/products\/basilius_besler__tulipa","provider":"Canvas Classics","version":"1.0","type":"link"}