The story behind

In 17th-century Holland, tulips unleashed passions and drove more than one collector mad, triggering an epidemic of "tulipmania". Everyone sought the most beautiful and most precious flowers, with petals whose edges were either smooth or indented, almost chased, and in graduated shades that complemented and merged into one another in infinite variations. Arousing the curiosity of botanists, tulips also enthralled artists, who made them the subject of vanitas paintings, and writers who immortalized their Romanesque significance. Under Aline Honoré's skilled hand, these flowers tell of nature's refinement, the changing seasons, and the passage of time… and trigger a new outbreak of tulipmania!