Flowers

It turned out that the flower thrived particularly well in the sandy soils of the coastal areas in the Netherlands. In the 17th century, dealers of tulips and other exotic flowers produced ‘Florilegia’, a type of catalogue containing detailed illustrations of their merchandise. Lovers of unusual flowers and plants commissioned work by painters and illustrators, ensuring floral still lifes became a popular artistic genre – real flowers would wither away, but paintings could serve as enduring substitutes. And in some cases these pictures of flowers cost less than the flowers themselves.