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11 July 2026: A photo tour of a 29 April 2026 visit to the Willet-Holthuysen House museum in Amsterdam.

16 June 2026: A photo tour of a 26 April 2026 visit to the Amsterdam Cheese Museum.

15 June 2026: A photo tour of a 26 April 2026 visit to the Amsterdam Tulip Museum.

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Willet-Holthuysen House: A historic upper class Amsterdam canal house museum

The Willet-Holthuysen House was built between 1685 and 1690 and, over the years, was home to more than 20 different Amsterdam families.  The last owners were Abraham and Louisa Willet-Holthuysen, wealthy art collectors.  Upon her death in 1895, Louisa  bequeathed the house and its contents to the city of Amsterdam for use as a museum.  Today, as part of the Amsterdam Museum, Willet-Holthuysen House shows how the couple and their staff lived and exhibits a selection of antique glassware, silver, ceramics, sculptures, paintings, and rare books once owned by Abraham and Louisa.

Photos taken 29 April 2026

A canal sightseeing boat passes the Willet-Holthuysen House, as seen from the south side of the Herengracht (Gentlemen's Canal), near its junction with the Amstel river.

Visitors enter the impressive 17th century canal house through the door under the front stairs.

In the basement, a small room at the rear is now used to display a five-minute orientation film on Willet-Holthuysen House.  Each of the families that lived in the house between 1690 and 1895 left their own mark on it, as did the curators who managed the building from 1895.  As such, the interior reflects a range of styles but is dominated by the Willet-Holthuysens' lavish redecoration in neo-Louis XVI fashion.      

The house's garden was originally much smaller, as part of the space was consumed by the coach house and stables for the horses.  These buildings were destroyed by fire in 1929 and, instead of rebuilding them, the house's curators decided to redesign the garden in the early 18th century style of French architect Daniel Marot.

One of several Classical-style sculptures displayed in the garden, which features linear paths of crushed gravel and carefully pruned hedges and trees.

The present formal, French-style city garden was laid out in 1972.  When Abraham and Louisa Willet-Holthuysen lived in the house, there was a clock on the exterior side wall that was used to warn the coachman that the couple wished to go out for a ride.  The horses would then be harnessed to the carriage in the coach house, which exited onto the street behind the garden, and driven around to the front of the house on Herengracht.

The Willet-Holthuysen House's garden, a quiet oasis of tranquility in the midst of bustling Amsterdam.

The kitchen, located in the house's basement, which was used almost exclusively by domestic staff in the past.  The current kitchen is not the original and is instead an attempt to reconstruct a kitchen from circa 1800.  This kitchen was initially installed at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum alongside other interiors taken from demolished canal houses.  Wishing to turn the Stedelijk Museum into a contemporary art museum, its director in the 1960s (who also was in charge of the Willet-Holthuysen House) had parts of the historic interiors moved to this kitchen.

The kitchen counter looks out into the back garden.  The various objects displayed in the kitchen are from the collection of Sophia Lopez Suasso-de Bruijn, a prominent Amsterdam collector who left her enormous art collection to the city of Amsterdam.

Over the course of the 29 years that the house was occupied by the Willet-Holthuysens, 79 members of staff were employed, comprising 56 women and 23 men.  They served in a variety of roles, such as maidservants, manservants, cooks and cook's assistants, lady's maids, lady's companions, caretakers, linen keepers, waiters, office clerks, nannies, and housekeepers.

Looking down the hallway on the principal floor, or bel-etage, towards the house's front door.  All of the rooms on this floor had a representative function and guests has to pass through a stately, impressive staircase to reach them.  The ceilings on the principal floor are higher and the furnishings more luxurious than in the basement below or the private floors above.  This floor also best reflects the stylistic tastes of Abraham and Louisa Willet-Holthuysen.  When they moved into the house in 1861, Abraham and Louisa had many of the rooms redecorated in the 19th century neo-Louis XVI style, named after the French monarch who made these types of interiors famous.  Typical design elements of neo-Louis XVI style include crossed torches and quivers of arrows, floral bouquets in baskets, flower wreaths, elegant ribbons, and turtle doves.  Abraham and Louisa commissioned many artists and decorators to align the various rooms' interiors with the contemporary fashion of the era.

The side room was long known as the 'Gentlemen's Room', based on the assumption that it was here that Abraham showed off his art collection to friends.  Given Louisa's previously underappreciated role in assembling the couple's art collection, this is no longer certain.  In fact, it was Louisa who gave Abraham an allowance for art purchases, thereby financing the entire collection, while she also personally made art purchases.  The side room features a ceiling painting, entitled 'Dawn', by Jacob de Wit from 1744.  Like the kitchen, the side room is not original, but rather a 1980 reconstruction of an 18th century salon, including the wall upholstery, fireplace, and ceiling.  The cupboards, chairs, and tables in the room are from Abraham and Louisa's collection, however.

The drawing room was used to host guests for tea.  Today, it houses a small part of Abraham and Louisa's art collection, including paintings, porcelain, glassware, and silverware.  The rug on the floor also dates back to the time of the Willet-Holthuysens.  Although this art collection was long regarded as Abraham's, Louisa also had an important role in compiling the items.

A closer look at some of the furnishings and art in the drawing room, including an ornate drop-down secretary's desk used for writing correspondence.

The entry to the grand salon from the drawing room.

The grand salon was the heart of the house, the most important room, where guests were received and entertained with concerts, lectures, and masquerade balls.  The Willet-Holthuysens imported the neo-Louis XVI style furniture, chandelier, and wall upholstery from France at a cost of more than €70,000 in today's currency.

Some of Abraham and Louisa's extensive collection of ceramics, including dishes with floral and rooster motifs on the upper shelf and dishes with Oriental-motifs on the lower shelf.

More items from Abraham and Louisa's ceramics collection, featuring exotic Oriental motifs.

Looking down the hallway towards the rear of the house.  Abraham and Louisa favoured the 18th century royal French style of art and architecture and commissioned French artist Paul Colin to paint the wall panels in this hallway.  The panels are partially based on the paintings of 18th century French masters Wattau and Fragonard.  Colin sketched copies of these paintings during visits to the Louvre and other galleries so that he could mimic them on the wall panels here.  The romantic scenes of picnics on grassy lawns and a girl on a swing would have contrasted with the often cold and grey weather of Amsterdam. 

The dining room, which could accommodate lavish meals for six people.  Larger dinner parties were held in a different room.  The dining room ceiling is much lower than elsewhere on this floor due to a pantry that was built above the dining room in the 18th century.

The dining room table is laid out with Meissen tableware, consisting of an enormous collection of 275 pieces to serve up to 24 guests.  Abraham and Louisa assembled a large collection of antique glassware, porcelain, and ceramic objects during their lives, but only a small portion of this collection was actually used for entertaining.  The more special items were considered works of art and only exhibited in display cabinets.

The garden room at the back of the house, with views over the garden.  Abraham and Louisa had the room decorated in a botanical theme and, in the past, the entire ceiling was covered in a painted floral motif.  Restorers working on the room have been able to uncover a small fragment of the original finish.  The walls of the garden room and some other rooms were painted plain white in the 1960s, as the museum's management wished to be able to use them for small presentations of the Willet-Holthuysen art collection and artworks from other municipal museums.

The 19th century chandelier hanging in the garden room.  Made by the Meissen porcelain factory in Germany, the chandelier was likely purchased by the Willet-Holthuysens especially for this room.  The chandelier recently underwent a two-year restoration. 

The view of the house's 18th century French-style city garden from the garden room.

The impressive stairwell leads up from the principal floor to the upper floor, where Abraham and Louisa's private rooms are located.

Lighted by a large overhead skylight, the stairwell was remodelled by the Deutz family when they lived in the house in the 1740s.  The remodelling included the installation of Italian marble walls, gilding of the banisters, and the addition of three marble statues.

The view from the stairwell landing between the principal floor and the upper floor.  The remodelling of this stairwell in the 1740s was a major and expensive contribution to the interior of the house.  The Deutz family, then living in the house, earned part of its wealth from its investments in plantations in Suriname, as well as the importation of coffee and sugar to the Netherlands.

These three marble statues were specially ordered for the niches on the walls of the staircase.  Together, the statues depict the Greek myth of 'The Judgment of Paris'.  The myth recounts how the Trojan prince Paris was chosen to judge which of three Olympian goddesses (Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite) was the fairest.  The three goddesses each offered a different bribe to Paris, with Hera offering power, Athena offering wisdom, and Aphrodite offering the love of Helen of Sparta, the most beautiful mortal.  Paris selected Aphrodite and, in return, took Helen to Troy, thereby triggering the Trojan War.

The upper floor hallway, looking toward the rear of the house.  This floor was where the many families who lived in the house over the years had their bedrooms and other private rooms.  In 1929, the University of Amsterdam established the Kunsthistorisch Instituut (Institute for Art History) on this floor.  After the Institute moved to a different location in 1950, the floor was used to host dozens of exhibitions of applied art.  Only at the end of the 20th century were some of the rooms on this floor restored to their appearance when the Willet-Holthuysens lived here.  Curators believe that in addition to their shared bedroom, Abraham and Louisa each had their own private rooms on this floor, though only Abraham's rooms have yet been restored.

The pantry, added to the house in the 18th century, was used a storage room.  Its construction required the ceiling of the dining room below to be lowered.  During the Second World War, it is likely that the pantry was used by people in hiding, who could have hidden themselves behind the many things stored in this space at the time.  Today, the pantry displays dishes, crockery, kettles, and other kitchen implements.

Abraham's study displays part of the Willet-Holthuysens' large and valuable book collection, which was the main reason for the city of Amsterdam to accept Louisa's bequest of the house and its contents in 1895.  Courtesy of various estate inventories, it is known exactly which books were kept in the study at the time.  The study's window looks out over the garden.

Another view of the study, decorated with a large Oriental rug, paintings, and a Classical marble bust.

Across the hall from the study is Abraham and Louisa's bedroom, as confirmed by the estate inventory prepared in 1895.  It was also likely used as a bedroom by previous owners of the house.  When Abraham and Louisa lived here, this room looked very different, with cream white bedroom furniture which was auctioned off by the first curator of the Willet-Holthuysen House.

Another view of the bedroom, with a window looking out over the garden.  The restoration of the bedroom gives an impression of what it might have looked like in the later 19th century, using furniture from the same time period.  There are no diaries or letters to offer insight into Abraham and Louisa's relationship; although the house's first curator wrote a book on the couple which portrayed their marriage as an unhappy one, there is no proof to substantiate this assertion. 

The antiques room at the rear of the house was restored to its appearance during the era of the Willet-Holthuysens using a few surviving fragments of rug and wall upholstery.  Despite their love of French style, Abraham and Louisa decorate this room in the Dutch Renaissance Revival style, which emulates the art and architecture of the 17th century.

A large cabinet in Louisa's boudoir displays part of a 166-piece dinner service manufactured by the Royal Porcelain Factory Dommer & Co. and donated to Willet-Holthuysen House by the Kruijff family in 2025.  The factory was once located on the Amstel, where the Amsterdam neighbourhood De Pijp is today.  The porcelain is presumed to be French and was painted in Amsterdam with numerous different city and village scenes.  The Kruijff family, cultivators of flower bulbs in the southern Dutch city of Sassenheim, used the dinner service for more than 150 years.  The dinner service was kept at an estate called Het Oude Koningshuys (The Old Royal House), which was once owned by the the Willet family.

Louisa Willet-Holthuysen's former boudoir, at the front of the house.  This room has not yet been restored to its original appearance when Abraham and Louisa lived in the house and and is currently used for exhibitions of contemporary artists and collectors. 

Hanging in Louisa's former boudoir is a 1674 painting attributed to Wallerant Vaillant (1623-1677), entitled 'The Chief Commissioners of the Wharves'.  The Chief Commissioners of the Wharves supervised the management of Amsterdam's ports, wharves, and cranes.  Old and new wharves, inland ports bordering the IJ river, served as mooring places for ships.  The commissioners depicted in this painting were part of the city administration and played a vital role in Amsterdam's logistics, trade, and infrastructure from the 1800s onward.  Their authority extended to the harbour master, the so-called quay knights, and the boom closers responsible for the actual supervision.

A framed oil painting of Willet-Holthuysen House in the 19th century, now hanging in Louisa Willet-Holthuysen's former boudoir.

A final look at the front of Willet-Holthuysen House museum on Herengracht.

Cheese, Glorious Cheese: The Amsterdam Cheese Museum

The Netherlands is famous for its cheese and the Amsterdam Cheese Museum offers visitors an opportunity to learn about the rich history of Dutch cheese making and to purchase a wide range of cheeses from the museum's shop.

Cheese making began 5,000 years ago, when nomads kept milk in sacks made from the dried stomachs of calves.  As the nomads travelled, the milk was continuously shaken, resulting in a thick, white mass.  This mass was stored in a basket with stones placed on top to speed the drying process, leading to the production of the first primitive cheese.  Cheese has been made in the Netherlands since prehistoric times, as proven by the examination of clay pots dating from 800 BC.  In the medieval era, Dutch towns liked Edam and Gouda became famous for making high-quality cheeses, made from milk produced by cattle grazed on the country's lush sea-clay grasslands.  In the 19th century, Dutch cows were known for their high milk yield and the Maas-Rijn-Ijssel and Holstein Friesian breeds remain the most important for global cheese production.  The average Dutch cow produces 8,000 litres of milk per year, with some 'super cows' producing an average of 12,000 litres per year.

Cows are milked twice a day, once in the morning and again in the evening.  On average, a cow produces 75 litres of milk per day.  Milking the cows was traditionally done manually, mostly by the farmer's wife.  Today, the milking process is automated using machines.  The milk carousel is a modern invention, comprising multiple stables that are slowly rotated; a cow enters one of the stables and is automatically milked during one rotation.  Milk extracted from the cow flows through the milking machine into the milk tank, in which it is kept cool.  The milk is transported in tanker trucks to a cheese factory to be made into cheese.

Milk contains lactose, proteins, fat, and salt and the cheese produced from milk can be made with either unpasteurised or pasteurised milk.  With pasteurisation, the milk is heated to more than 70 degrees Celsius to kill off bacteria, while raw, unpasteurised milk retains the bacteria and gives the cheese a richer flavour and creamier texture.  To make cheese, the milk is warmed up to 29 degrees Celsius and rennet (an enzyme that helps to curdle the milk) is added; this causes the proteins and fat in the milk to stick together.  While rennet was traditionally found in one of the stomachs of calves, today it is often derived from plants.  After approximately 30 minutes, the milk has thickened and the thick milk is cut into pieces, thereby separating the curds (pieces) from the whey (fluid).  Cutting of the curds is done with great care, as they are very delicate.  To achieve the correct firmness, the curds are then washed with hot water and stirred, causing the curds to shrink and firm up.  When almost all the whey is drained, the pieces of curd are put in a cheese mould and pressed tightly to drain off more whey and firm up the cheese.  The duration of the pressing stage depends on the weight of the curd.  After pressing, the cheese is immersed in salt water, with the cheese absorbing the salt to enhance its firmness and flavour; the salt also helps the cheese to stay fresh longer.  The cheese is then placed on wooden shelves in a warehouse to age for at least four weeks, with any remaining moisture gradually evaporating.  The cheese must be turned upside down and cleaned once a week, a process that was originally done by hand but is increasingly done using robots in large commercial cheese manufacturing facilities.  Young cheese is soft and mild, while older cheese is harder, drier, saltier, and with a stronger flavour.  Over the course of the 'ripening' process, the cheese maker drills samples out of the cheeses to taste their quality.

Photos taken 26 April 2026

The Amsterdam Cheese Museum at 112 Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal) is open daily from 9:00am to 10:00pm, with free admission and free samples of over 20 different Dutch cheeses that are available for purchase in the museum's shop.

The main floor contains the cheese shop, selling over 20 different kinds of Dutch cheese, including many varieties of Gouda.  The shop also sells gifts and cheese accessories, such as cheese boards and slicers.  All of the cheeses for sale are vacuum sealed in plastic and approved to clear airport customs for those overseas tourists looking to bring home a taste of Holland.  Free samples of the cheeses are available in little bowls on each display so you can taste before you buy.  At the back of the shop are the stairs leading down to the museum in the basement.

A display at the bottom of the stairs leading from the main floor cheese shop shows off a 1950s vintage Berkel counter balance cheese scale and various historic implements used in cheese making.

The basement contains the cheese museum, featuring exhibits on the history of Dutch cheese and the process of cheese making, as well as numerous historic artefacts used in the manufacture of cheese.  In the centre of the room is a large scale dating to 1649 that would traditionally have been used to weigh cheeses in a town's Waag (market square building) before the advent of electronic scales.  Such scales used government-stamped weights to ensure accuracy and deter fraud, and weighing cheese was mandatory for traders in many Dutch cities.

A cheese press from 1870.  In the 19th century, peasant families traditionally gave such cheese presses as wedding gifts.  The press, with the married couple's initials placed on both sides, was placed in the couple's living room so it could be shown off.  The museum's cheese press is one of the oldest surviving presses in the Netherlands and belonged to the family of Johannes Bernardus, known for their good quality cheese.

A milk machine, consisting of four milking cups, a milking tube, and a pressure device.  Such machines keep the milk contained within a sterile environment and prevent external contamination.  On the bottom right is a milk churn.  As cows were milked in the evening and again in the morning, the evening milk was kept fresh by pouring it into a churn, which was then chilled to a temperature of 6 degrees Celsius.

A display of cheese slicers over the decades.  The first slicer was invented in 1925 by Norwegian carpenter Thor Bjørklund.  Since cheese comes into contact with oxygen when sliced and thereby reaches its fullest flavour, as with decanting wine, true cheese connoisseurs always use a cheese slicer.  Dutch kitchens contain an average of 2.7 cheese slicers.

A model cow and a large photo of a quintessential Dutch rural scene provides a backdrop for museum visitors to pose for a photo.

As the Amsterdam Cheese Museum is sponsored by Dutch cheese companies, several of the exhibits profile these companies, such as the North Holland-based Klaver Cheese, maker of premium, artisan cheeses produced from its own herd of 400 cows and 2,100 goats.

History of a national icon: The Amsterdam Tulip Museum

The Amsterdam Tulip Museum tells the story of the tulip and its strong, centuries-old connection to Dutch history and culture.  Founded in 2004 by tulip specialists and enthusiasts from the bulb-growing region of Noord-Holland, the museum traces the tulip's 400+ year history, from its origins in Central Asia to its arrival in the Netherlands and subsequent development as a national icon of the Dutch.  Artefacts and historical documents, films, and interactive displays cover the botanical, cultural, and economic aspects of the tulip, with each of the museum's galleries exploring a different chapter of the story.

Photos taken 26 April 2026

The Amsterdam Tulip Museum, located in a canal house at 116 Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal).  The museum comprises a shop in the front selling tulip and other flower bulbs, gardening tools, gifts, books, and floral art, as well as a small museum with galleries at the rear of the main floor and in the basement recounting the history of the tulip.  The museum is open daily from 10:00 am to 6:00pm.

Below: The front and reverse sides of the pamphlet provided to visitors.

Visitors start with an introductory video on the history of the tulip.  Large pots of colourful tulips adorn the small theatre.

After watching the introductory video, visitors proceed downstairs to Gallery 1.  Gallery 6, the final gallery, is located on the main floor at the rear of the building.

Gallery 1 is entitled 'Tulips in the Wild' and tells of the flower's origins in the northern foothills of the Himalayan mountains in central Asia.  Sixty percent of all wild tulips originated here, in the desolate terrain isolated from civilisation by the Tian Shan and Pamir mountains.  The rugged land endures climatic extremes, from bitter cold winters to blazing hot summers, and desert dry almost year-round.  From these regions of the Himalayas and the Caucasus, tulip bulbs found their way west to central Europe via the trade routes and, eventually, to the Netherlands, the country with which they are now most closely associated.  Today, a dazzling variety of tulips can be found throughout the world.

An interactive globe maps out the locations where some 100 different wild tulip species can still be found today.  Touch screens allow visitors to learn more about each identified species. 

A spiral photo montage tells the story of the tulip's westward journey along the Silk Road from the Tian Shan mountains in central Asia to the plains of Anatolia and eventually to Istanbul, courtesy of the nomadic Seljuk Turks.  There are no traces of the tulip in Roman and Byzantine culture, nor does the tulip appear in the flower-decorated borders of medieval European manuscripts.  The tulip was introduced to Anatolia with the arrival of the Turks in the 11th century, and by 1400 tulips were reported in the gardens of the Turkish Mongol Emperor Timur in Samarkand, whose control of the main trade routes between East and West (the 'Silk Road') brought him immense wealth.  

This display recounts the tulip's place in the Ottoman Empire, which at its height in the 16th and 17th centuries spanned from Morocco to the Caspian Sea and from Yemen to Hungary.  The name 'tulip' is the Latinised version of the Turkish word for 'turban', ultimately derived from the Persian 'dulband' ('round') because the flower's shape was thought to resemble a turban.  Turkish men customarily wore tulips tucked into the folds of their turbans.  To Muslims, gardens and flowers are regarded as sacred, with Paradise believed to be an extraordinarily beautiful garden.  The tulip was considered the holiest of flowers and in Arabic script literally translated as the Flower of God.  The Ottoman sultans were the first tulip fanatics, collecting, breeding, and planting large numbers of the flower in the gardens of their palaces in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul).  It was during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (ruled 1520-1566) that efforts began to obtain new tulips from wild varieties, with almond-shaped 'needle tulips' becoming particularly popular and featuring as a decorative motif on contemporary manuscripts, tiles, and pottery.  It is not known precisely when tulips made their way to Europe, though European ambassadors to the court of Suleiman may have seen tulips in bloom and arranged to ship bulbs home.  The first documented flowering of a tulip in Europe was in April 1559 in a garden in Bavaria.

A ceramic tile mosaic depicting tulips. Ottoman society saw great artistic and architectural achievements in the second half of the 16th century, with new trends and developments in art, such as the underglaze technique which produced the vivid red colour on tiles. Tulips were a recurring motif on tiles of this era, with nearly all important Ottoman buildings being decorated with tiles depicting the flower.

Cut-out displays on either side of this room present tulip trivia from the Ottoman world (on the right) and the Netherlands (on the left).  There are anecdotes about Dutch floriculture, the hybridisation of tulips, tulip-related art, various personalities linked to the tulip, and the trade in tulips.

Gallery 3, 'Tulips and Holland' holds displays on the Dutch interest and trade in tulips.  The first tulips in Holland were planted by botanist Carolus Clusius in 1593 as part of the botanic garden established by Leiden University.  Clusius traded bulbs and seeds with many of his friends and colleagues around Europe, which led to the growing appeal of tulips in the Netherlands and neighbouring countries.  The gallery is modelled on the cabinets used to display items collected by European rulers, wealthy landowners, and members of the merchant class beginning in the Renaissance.  Such cabinets stored assembled collections of scientific, religious, artistic or technological curiosities and were the predecessors of modern museums.  In the Netherlands, no curio collection would be complete without a display of tulips or tulip-themed books or artwork.  The wide variations in tulip colours and shape fascinated the wealthy collectors, with people attempting to outdo each other in collecting the most unusual forms of the flower. 

A model of a Dutch flute ship.  These vessels were readily identifiable by their narrow deck and especially wide hull.  Such a design permitted the carriage of relatively large cargoes and, with simple rigging, a small crew could easily sail the ship.  As such, flutes were economical to operate and were very successful as cargo vessels.  Thousands of flutes were built and proved especially useful on the Baltic trade route.

A model of a Dutch whaler, circa 1650.  The Dutch discovery of Spitsbergen became the basis for Dutch claims to the whaling grounds in and around the Arctic archipelago, with other nations having less right to hunt whales in waters discovered by Dutch explorers.  Dutch whaling vessels were much more heavily constructed than other ships, with thicker masts and a stern reinforced by special vertical beams to protect it against the hoisting of the smaller hunting boats.  The round shape of the hull helped to guide floating ice along its sides, making these flute ships well suited to sailing through drifting ice at sea.  Although smaller than normal flutes, the whalers carried a much larger crew of up to 40 men due to the labour-intensive nature of whaling and the processing of the catch.

Images of various varieties of tulip from the Florilegium ('collection of flowers'), Europe's first commercial nursery catalogue, by Emanuel Sweert (1552-1612).  The catalogue depicted 560 different bulbs and flowers, with three pages devoted to the tulip.  Six editions of the Florilegium were printed between 1612 and 1647, with these pages coming from the edition of 1647.  Sweert was the first to recognise the true commercial value of the tulip and his Florilegium helped to expand the market for the flower.  He supplied plants to the royal courts in Vienna and Prague, as well as wealthy Dutch and German gardeners.  Gradually, tulips found their way into more and more gardens and, by the 1620s, the tulip was considered an essential part of fashionable Dutch gardens.

Vanitas, by artist and art dealer Jacob Marrell.  Dating from around 1650, this painting bears all the marks of Marrell's hand and is generally thought to be by him.  Painted around the time of Marrell's wife's death, there are indications it was left unfinished.  The painting is dominated by the tulips at the top, which are easily matched with the flowers in Marrell's tulip books.  A sense of movement is provided by the turned away poppy, the leafless iris, and the depiction of flying insects.  The overblown pink roses, the fallen petals, the black beetle, and the butterfly could be interpreted as symbols of redemption, signifying the fleeting nature of life.

One of the volumes of Carolus Clusius's two-volume edition of Rariorum Plantarum Historia ('History of Rare Plants'), published in 1601.  Written in Latin, Volume I contains the first monograph ever published on the tulip and features 22 woodcut print illustrations.  Clusius attempted to bring order to the nomenclature of the period, categorising the tulip into several groups: eight different 'praecox' (early-flowering kinds), 'serotinas' (late-flowering kinds), and 'dubias' (in between kinds). 

Gallery 4 is devoted to 'tulip mania', the craze for tulips that swept Holland and led to frenzied speculation that drove the price of tulip bulbs to exorbitant levels, followed by a spectacular crash.  The tulip was coveted in Holland as a status symbol for the wealthy and a means of mobility for the working class; working class people fortunate to possess outstanding seedlings could sell them for large sums of money.  Speculation and frenzied trading in tulip bulbs began in the autumn of 1636 and the winter of 1637, with prices rising precipitously, driven by newfound wealth and greed.  The highest attested price for a single tulip bulb in 1637 was 5,200 guilders; by comparison, 40 gallons of French brandy cost 13 guilders, a carpenter's annual wage was 250 guilders, and even a wealthy merchant typically earned only 3,000 guilders per year.  So-called 'broken' tulips (those with dramatic, irregular stripes, feathering, or flame-like streaks of color on their petals) were considered the ultimate in beauty and fetched the highest prices.  Not understood at the time was the fact that broken tulips were caused by a virus and tulips infected by virus slowly weaken over the years and eventually die.  The Semper Augustus tulip was the most valuable of all the red-and-white, flamed-and-feathered tulips of the 17th century, holding its high price over a long period: in 1624, a single Semper Augustus bulb cost 1,200 guilders; by 1625, the asking price had more than doubled; and in 1633, the price had increased to 5,500 guilders.  At the height of tulip mania in 1637, 10,000 guilders (the cost of the most expensive houses on Amsterdam's canals) was offered for three Semper Augustus bulbs.  Tulip mania came to a crashing end in February 1637 when the tulip market collapsed, ruining fortunes and reputations.

A porcelain tulipiere, a tiered, multi-spouted vase used to display tulips.  Such vases were developed in Holland in the 17th century, at the height of tulip mania, and were inspired by porcelain pagodas.  As with this example, a tulipiere was often finished in a traditional blue-and-white glaze depicting birds, landscapes, flora, and fauna in imitation of expensive imports from China.

Gallery 5 tells the story of commercial tulip production which, after the 1637 collapse of the tulip market, shifted from mainly city dwellers to rural farmers.  Over the next two centuries, Dutch tulip production slowly increased to become an important component of the national economy.  As tulip exports grew, planting, harvesting, and distribution techniques steadily improved and a carefully coordinated national system of tulip growing and dissemination was in place by the late 1880s.  This system relied on manual labour and simple tools to plant and harvest tulip bulbs.  With the rise of modern modes of transport in the early 20th century, it became possible to ship tulip bulbs globally and the tulip became the Netherlands' most famous export product.  Between 1880 and 1950, tulip production saw a particularly consistent period of worldwide growth, cementing the Netherlands' reputation as the centre of the industry.

Following the end of tulip mania, cultivation of tulips was concentrated in a sandy area just south of the city of Haarlem.  At that time, a small number of growers worked small plots of land and combined growing tulips and other crops.  By the late 1800s, tulip bulb cultivation slowly expanded toward the 'flower bulb district', spurred by a growing population and a rising middle class with the money, time, and land to grow tulips and other flowering plants.  The period between 1885 and 1935 saw the beginning of the modern tulip industry and growers from Haarlem moved their nurseries southward, excavating the sand dunes between Haarlem and Leiden.  This profound transformation of the land created the flat, sandy bulb fields seen today.  An illustrated chronology of commercial tulip cultivation, accompanied by examples of historic tools used by growers, explains the annual cycle at a tulip nursery:

• In October, tulip bulbs are planted to give them time to form a good root system before winter.  
• In November, a layer of thatch is added on top of the tulip beds to keep the soil temperature from fluctuating too much, as soil heaving can damage tulip roots.  
• In March, the thatch is removed as the tulip stems began to poke above the soil.  
• In March and April, specialists walk through the beds of tulips to look for plants that are infected by virus or are not true to variety; sick tulips and other non-conforming plants are removed by hand to keep the crop healthy and uniform.  
• In April and May, the tulip flowerheads are cut off to help the tulips produce more and bigger bulbs, since flowers take energy and eventually turn into seedpods which also drain away nutrients from the new bulbs developing underground.  
• In July, after the tulip leaves turn brown, the bulbs are ready to be dug up; the foliage is cut away from the bulbs and the stems and leaves are raked together and removed from the field to be burned.  
• Earlier in the 20th century, the bulbs were lifted from the ground in July and August using a troffel, a two-handed digging blade, and shaken in a hor, a flat wooden sift or wicker basket.  Placed in large baskets, the tulip bulbs were carried off the field.  The freshly-harvested clusters of bulbs were broken up by hand and old skins and roots removed.
• Graded by size, large bulbs are intended for sale, while the smaller bulbs are retained to be planted again in the autumn.  Tulip bulbs must be completely dry before they can be packed and shipped.  The long wooden shelves in the old flower bulb warehouses allowed the air to dry the bulbs.  
• In August and September, tulip bulbs were traditionally counted by hand and packed in paper bags, which were then placed into wooden export crates; packing the crates was difficult work, as the bags were uneven in size and only trained hands were able to use the available space efficiently.  
• In September, the packed tulip bulbs were transported via the many small canals running through the flower bulb district and hoisted from flat boats onto barges for shipment to Amsterdam or Rotterdam.  The bulbs were shipped overseas from these ports.

The museum's final gallery, 'Tulips Today', celebrates the size of the Dutch bulb industry and its importance to global tulip production.  A tulip grower of the 16th century would be amazed at the hundreds of varieties grown commercially today and the global interest in the flower.  Despite advances in horticultural science that has allowed tulips to be grown in a wide range of places around the world, tulip bulb production remains dominated by Dutch growers.  The gallery features vibrant photos of some of the many tulip varieties grown by Dutch farmers, along with a looped film on modern tulip cultivation, and baskets of brightly-coloured fresh tulips.

Baskets of fresh tulips.  Holland's climate and land is perfectly suited to tulip cultivation and industrious Dutch growers have turned this flower into a worldwide icon.  As the saying goes, 'God created the Earth, but the Dutch created Holland.'