Karlsruhe tulip books
The Karlsruhe Tulip Books were created around 1730 on behalf of the city's founder, Margrave Karl Wilhelm von Baden-Durlach . In addition to tulips and daffodils , these flower books contain numerous depictions of hyacinths , ranunculus , anemones and auriculas . The four volumes still preserved today are in the Badische Landesbibliothek (Sign. K 3301 and K 3302) and in the General State Archives Karlsruhe (Sign. Hfk, Hs. 263 and 269).
History of the Karlsruhe tulip books
The passion for botany can be traced back over generations in the family of the Margraves of Baden . As early as 1565 there was a garden in the Durlach Residence , of whose plants Frederick VI. (1617–1677) had some watercolors made of flowers around 1660. This Flora picta collection, which is still preserved today in the Göttingen University Library , consists mainly of tulip portraits and is regarded as the predecessor of the famous Karlsruhe tulip books from around 1730. In 1709, Margrave Karl III. Wilhelm von Baden-Durlach (1679–1738) succeeded his father Margrave Friedrich VII. Magnus (1647–1709). The abundance of flowers in the Durlach palace gardens at that time is documented by a catalog of flowers printed in 1713, which is included in the “Fürstl. Hoff-Garten zu Carlsburg ”( Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe , HfK-Hs. No. 107) can be seen. It documents 2,121 alphabetically sorted types of flowers, including a total of 1,162 different types of tulips. Even then, Karl Wilhelm's great love for tulips was evident.
Just a few kilometers from his old residence in Durlach, Margrave Karl III. Wilhelm von Baden-Durlach laid the foundation stone for his new palace and the city of Karlsruhe on June 17, 1715 . Two years later, the gardener Berceon designed a terrace-shaped pleasure garden based on the model of the gardens of Versailles Palace , which were then fashionable and laid out by André Le Notre (1613–1700). 32 avenues spread out from the central Karlsruhe castle tower like rays of sunshine into the surroundings.
The Karlsruhe palace garden was divided by a transverse and a longitudinal axis. The central axis took up a lush flower parterre with a fountain. This ground floor was strewn with colored sand, crushed glass and shells. To the right and left of it were groves of pleasure, the so-called Boskette, criss-crossed by paths. At the side there were four gardens with flowers, glass houses, aviaries and grottos. In the summer, numerous orange trees were set up along the main avenues. Chestnut avenues led in the east to the stables and in the west along the orangeries up to the circle . In addition, the garden was equipped with four different buildings: in the northwest and southeast there were glass houses for the orangery and rare exotic plants, in the northeast an extensive aviary and in the southwest a menagerie. An inventory of "all the orangeries at the court of Carolsruhe as Durlach" (Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, HfK-Hs No. 222) records a total of 1,924 citrus plants in Karlsruhe and 2,267 specimens in Durlach for the year 1727. Plants such as oleanders, laurels, palms, pomegranates and olive trees can also be identified as part of the Karlsruhe Palace Gardens.
The tulip came to Germany as early as the middle of the 16th century, where it soon enjoyed great popularity. Holland developed into an important center for flower bulb cultivation and the flower bulb trade, where the tulip quickly gained a prominent position within gardening culture. In the years from 1634 to 1637 the enthusiasm for the tulip increased to the phenomenon of so-called tulipomania . The tulip had become a luxury good and an object of speculation.
Margrave Karl III. Wilhelm von Baden-Durlach was enthusiastic about the new baroque fashion flower and obtained the tulip bulbs for the Karlsruhe palace garden from a total of 17 different Dutch growers. There were even new varieties of tulips from Karlsruhe. Margrave Karl Wilhelm himself traveled to Holland to expand his botanical knowledge and to maintain business relationships. More than 5,000 different varieties of tulips and numerous botanical rarities could be admired in the Karlsruhe palace gardens at the end of the city's founder.
The Karlsruhe Tulip Books
Margrave Karl Wilhelm left a collection of approx. 6,000 watercolors with plants. More than 5,300 of these sheets were devoted to the depiction of tulips, which explains the designation as "Karlsruhe Tulip Books". Originally 20 of these large folio volumes were made around 1730. On the night of September 2nd to 3rd, 1942, 16 of them were destroyed in the fire in the Badische Landesbibliothek . The four volumes still preserved today are in the Badische Landesbibliothek (Sign. K 3301 and K 3302) and in the General State Archives Karlsruhe (Sign. Hfk, Hs. 263 and 269).
The tulip watercolors also contain representations of new varieties with the names of important personalities or of places in Baden, such as B. Marggräffin Maria Anna von Baaden or Prince August von Baaden . In addition to tulips and daffodils, numerous depictions of hyacinths, ranunculus, anemones and auriculas can be found in the flower books. Most of the sheets are provided with a date and a number referring to the respective flower catalog. In contrast to the Karlsruhe Tulip Book K 3302, the volume with the signature K 3301 is primarily dedicated to the rare and exotic plants of the Karlsruhe Palace Gardens. Some of these sheets come from the time of Margravine Karoline Luise (1723–1783) and are dated around 1770.
When producing this botanical compilation, Karl Wilhelm was concerned with a downright scientific recording of the individual flowers. With the help of painting, all the individual details of the flowers could be captured, but the foliage was often neglected. With the help of signatures and painting styles, different artists can be documented who were commissioned to produce the flower portraits. Well-known flower painters at the Karlsruher Hof were z. B. Georg Dionysius Ehret , the brothers August Wilhelm and Ernst Friedrich Sievert, Philipp Andreas Eichrodt and Heinrich Lihl. Two women named M. Erlacher and AS Mez are also mentioned on some sheets.
Exhibition “Karlsruhe Tulip Culture. Margrave Karl Wilhelm and his garden art "
On the occasion of the 300th birthday of the city of Karlsruhe in 2015, the still preserved Karlsruhe flower books were presented to the public for the first time. From February 11th to April 25th, 2015, the Badische Landesbibliothek showed the exhibition “Karlsruhe Tulip Culture. Margrave Karl Wilhelm and his garden art ”.
Web links
- Karlsruhe tulip books in the digital collections of the Baden State Library
- Exhibition “Karlsruhe Tulip Culture. Margrave Karl Wilhelm and his garden art ” on the website of the Badische Landesbibliothek
literature
- [Facsimile] Karlsruher Tulpenbuch: a manuscript from the Baden State Library ; [Excerpt from Hs. KS Niche C 13] / with an introduction by Gerhard Stamm. - Karlsruhe: Badische Bibliotheksgesellschaft, 1984. - 25, [38] Bl.: Mostly. Ill.
- Mike Dash: Tulip madness - the craziest speculation in history , Munich 1999.
- Hans Merkle: Hans Merkle, Margrave Carl Wilhelm's travels to "idolize the mind". On the Rhine to the Netherlands and other “pleasure trips” by the founder of Karlsruhe . Search for traces and diaries, Karlsruhe 2014.
- Tulipomania: the tulip in the art of the 16th and 17th centuries ; [Exhibition of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden from May 8 to August 8, 2004 in Pillnitz Castle] / ed. by André van der Goes. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kunstgewerbemuseum
Individual evidence
- ^ Stamm, Gerhard: [Facsimile] Karlsruher Tulpenbuch: a manuscript of the Badische Landesbibliothek; [Excerpt from Hs. KS Niche C 13] / with an introduction by Gerhard Stamm . Badische Bibliotheksgesellschaft, Karlsruhe 1984, p. 9 f .
- ^ André van der Goes (Ed.): Tulipomania: the tulip in the art of the 16th and 17th centuries; [Exhibition of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden from May 8th to August 8th 2004 in Pillnitz Castle] . Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Dresden, p. 47 ff .
- ↑ Dash, Mike: Tulip Mania - The Craziest Speculation in History . Munich 1999, p. 10 .