Anton Koster artwork • painting • previously for sale Late tulips and a reed stack near Bennebroek

Every year, from March to the beginning of May, when the bulb fields in the vicinity of Heemstede were in bloom, Anton L. Koster went out to study them. With the invention of paint tubes, outdoor painting had been on the rise since the mid-19th century. Koster worked in the middle of the bulb fields with a folding chair and painter's box. He made his studies, no larger than 30 x 44 cm, on cloths, which he attached to the lid of the painter's box with thumbtacks, and then fixed them at home on a thick cardboard or panel. They served as an example for larger paintings that Koster made in his studio, but were also readily sold at that time because, in their spontaneity, they were often just as attractive as the finished paintings. Koster's paintings regularly showed a 'great heap', a reed shelf, piled up in a corner of the country. The reed was used three times. In the autumn, the newly planted bulbous plant was covered with it to prevent frost damage. In the spring, the reed was collected again and stacked in a shell and covered with a new layer of reed, to prevent rain and rotting. The bottom ten to thirty centimeters that lay for years was called 'poker'. The reed was usually of the lower quality. The first quality was - and still is - used for roofing. From the 1970s onwards, straw of wheat or barley was used to cover the bulbs and the reed sheaves have disappeared from the bulb landscape. With thanks to Arie L. Breure - Museum de Zwarte Tulp.