The Tulip Bubble

Just finished this illustration.


The assignment was to illustrate "plant uses" by humans.
right away I thought of  Michael Pollen's "Botany of Desire"... there are so many facets of plant usage within that book... I wasn't sure whether to go with the tulips or johnny apple seed.... but since I liked the idea of painting the "Semper Augusts" tulip I went with that.

in the 1630's The Dutch went CRAZY with tulip mania, with many wealthy citizens speculating huge sums of money and even their houses for a few rare tulip bulbs....

The Semper Augustus was considered the most beautiful variety due to its variegated red and white coloration.  It also happened to be a very rare cultivar. This is because the variegation was actually caused by a plant virus that eventually degraded the genetics of the plant until the bulbs were unable to produce flowers.  The Dutch didn't know this and the demand compounded with its scarcity made the Semper Augustus the most expensive Tulip to ever be sold... a single bulb was sold for 10,000 guilders. This would be equivalent to about 7 million dollars in today's market.

Needless to say, in 1637 the bubble burst and tulips prices plummeted, leading to what many historians consider the first economic crash.

I composed this piece as a book cover, so most of the visual information is on the right, leaving the back side relatively blank so it could be designed for type and barcodes, etc.
So there are actually two compositions for the illustration, the whole piece as a horizontal layout or just the right half as a vertical layout.

The deadline sorta snuck up on me, but I had a very good preliminary drawing and color rough already laid out, so upon discovering this was due the next day, I was able to complete the piece between 9pm and 2am the night before...  Not an ideal situation, but I proved to myself what I can get done in only 5 hours if need be.