Spring in Rubens’ garden
Spring has officially sprung in Rubens’s garden: the fritillaries, crown imperials, anemones and spring snowflakes are already in bloom. The very first tulips have also already emerged.
For the first time, the public can see Rubens’s garden awaken in spring. Right now, stately crown imperial, fritillaries, fiery red anemones, yellow and purple primroses and white spring snowflakes are blooming in the garden. The first tulips have also already emerged. From now until around mid-May, you can expect to see the following tulips: elegant white, bright yellow, or orange-reddish tulips, as well as rare broken tulips. A total of 22 unique varieties have been planted in the garden, with unusual names like the ‘Black and White’, ‘Absalon’, ‘Bacchus’, ‘Bronze Charm’, ‘Little Princess’ or ‘Rubens broken’.
The Antwerp tulip bulb club
In Rubens’ time, tulips were very fashionable; they were a symbol of luxury and wealth. Until now, tulip mania or tulip fever has been a phenomenon studied by historians and economists in cities such as Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Leiden. Thanks to new archival research, garden curator Klara Alen discovered a very profitable trade in tulip bulbs just 200 metres from Rubens’s house. A group of tulip collectors met at De Zwaan Inn in the present-day Graanmarkt, where a brisk trade in bulbs took place. A rare tulip bulb could set you back 1,800 guilders. For comparison, Rubens’s highest-paid servant earned 72 guilders a year. The names of many wealthy Antwerp bulb investors have been identified in the archives. Almost all of them have a link to Rubens: his beer supplier, a collector of his work, a family friend... (For now) we cannot be sure that Rubens was involved in this tulip trade in one way or another. But there can be no doubt that the brunt of this trade took place just a stone’s throw from his house.
Thanks to these discoveries, Klara can also attribute a new meaning to Jan Brueghel the Younger’s famous monkey paintings. These works, in which the artist mocks the tulip mania, can thus be interpreted as an indictment of the tulip fever in Antwerp instead of the Northern Netherlands.
Practical information
- The tulips in Rubens’s garden can be admired between early April and mid-May, depending on when they flower.
- The garden is accessible daily for a fee, except on Wednesdays. A garden ticket costs 8 euros and a garden subscription 39 euros for one year. The garden subscription can only be purchased online at www.rubenshuis.be.
- Different prices apply for activities. Visit www.rubenshuis.be/kalender to check the calendar of activities and prices.
Contact
- Press: press@visitantwerpen.be
- Images: Spring in Rubens' garden and The Rubenshuis opens the Rubens Experience, redesigned garden and library