Primula (Tuft of Cowslips)

A low bank of leaves fills most of Primula , also known as Tuft of Cowslips . Its flowers occupy surprisingly little space. Two tall stems rise clear of the foliage, carrying yellow bells against an empty background, while a shorter flowering stem remains caught among the leaves. The subject is a whole patch of growth: upright leaves, folded and spreading leaves, narrow grasses and a dark foothold of earth. In the National Gallery of Art, Washington, it is catalogued under Albrecht Dürer's name as Tuft of Cowslips , in gouache on parchment, measuring just 19.3 × 16.8 centimetres. ^[1]

That small size changes the experience of the image. In an enlarged reproduction the veining can look broad and emphatic, and the mound can acquire the weight of a landscape. The original sheet is smaller than a standard sheet of writing paper. Its many changes of surface and direction have been compressed into an object that rewards close attention. Looking from the outer leaves towards the centre becomes a gradual discovery of how much has been fitted into this modest space.

The flower is the cowslip, Primula veris . Kew describes its characteristic arrangement as a basal rosette of leaves with yellow flowers carried on an erect stem. That distinction between the low leaf mass and the raised flowers is the study's organising principle. The artist gives the leaves almost all the weight and breadth, then lets the narrow stems escape into the upper half. The flowers seem delicate partly because so much substantial foliage supports them. ^[2]

A crowded piece of growth

The rosette is easiest to understand by following the leaves one at a time. Near the middle, a tall leaf faces us almost squarely, its central rib climbing towards a rounded tip. Branching veins divide its surface into small, irregular compartments. To its left, a darker upright leaf repeats the basic shape but turns it away from the light. Farther out, leaves spread almost horizontally. Their changing angles build a shallow bowl around the point from which the stems emerge.

The veins do more than identify a plant. Pale ridges and darker hollows make each leaf appear puckered, as though its surface has risen between the larger structural lines. A leaf lying across the lower left catches light differently from the tall central leaf; its wrinkled surface becomes a succession of small flashes and shadows. Along several edges, brown and yellow tones interrupt the green. These variations make the tuft feel uneven and particular, without allowing us to diagnose the plant's condition or reconstruct how long it stood before the artist.

Overlap gives the central mass its depth. A broad leaf disappears beneath another, a narrow stem passes in front of a darker surface, and small rounded leaves occupy gaps near the bottom. Some forms can be followed back towards their base; others vanish into the cluster. The artist has allowed that partial concealment to remain. We see a plant from one chosen direction, with the difficulty of disentangling its parts still present.

The flowering stems provide a much simpler set of lines. The tallest is close to vertical, while its neighbour inclines towards the left. Their differences prevent the upper half from settling into a symmetrical arrangement. At the top, slender flower stalks spread from a common centre. The green tubes, yellow mouths and little turned faces make each cluster legible as a gathering of separate flowers. Some bells face out towards us; others appear in profile or hang down. The eye moves around them as it might around a small bunch held up for inspection.

The shorter flowering stem matters because it connects those airy clusters with the heavier foliage. Its yellow flowers appear against green rather than against the pale background. Their colour draws attention into the middle of the tuft, where stems and leaves are most tightly interwoven. This small passage also prevents the composition from dividing too neatly into a leafy lower half and a flowering upper half.

At ground level, the handling changes again. Fine blades run across a broad dark patch beneath the plant, their thin green lines particularly clear against the shadow. The earth spreads unevenly beyond the leaves, then loses definition towards the lower edge. There is no horizon to explain where this fragment belongs. Its immediate surroundings have been retained only far enough to give it a place to stand. The untouched-looking space above and beside it makes the irregular outline unusually easy to read.

Parchment, paint and an added date

The present museum record specifies parchment as the support and gouache as the medium. In the reproduction, the plant's colour varies from light, thin-looking passages to much denser dark areas. Bright veins sit prominently against green surfaces, while the earth seems brushed out more broadly. These are visible differences in the painted effect; the image alone cannot reveal the exact order of the layers or identify individual pigments. Its yellow-brown background also belongs to the appearance of the sheet as it survives, rather than to a painted sky or a documented original setting. ^[1]

Support has figured in the attribution debate. In the 1986 Nuremberg exhibition catalogue, Barbara Drake Boehm pointed out that the textured vellum of this group of plant studies complicates comparison with Dürer's works on paper. Her entry called the sheet Primroses , dated it about 1503–12 and identified the date and monogram as later additions. The National Gallery currently heads its record “1526,” but its inscription field likewise assigns “1526 / AD,” at the lower right, to a later hand. The familiar date therefore cannot be treated as an autograph record of the year of execution. ^{[3] [1]}

Boehm also addressed the disagreement over authorship. She reported Fritz Koreny's rejection of the disputed group in his 1985 exhibition catalogue, then questioned the method of judging the plant sheets against a single accepted example, the Great Piece of Turf . Her entry set out comparisons of colour and spatial depth in the work's favour, alongside the difficulty introduced by its support. In 1999 Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. again acknowledged the attribution problem in a note, although the Washington exhibition catalogued the work under Dürer's name. The current owner continues that attribution. The study's precise observation is compelling, but naturalistic detail by itself cannot decide who painted it. ^{[3] [14] [1]}

A plant study beside a herbal

The compact image becomes more distinctive when placed beside a plant illustration designed for a book. Wheelock compared it with Hans Weiditz's work for Otto Brunfels's Herbarum vivae eicones , published from 1530. He emphasised the herbal illustrator's need to make plants identifiable, including the parts below the ground. That comparison concerns different ways of presenting natural knowledge. It does not establish that Tuft of Cowslips was commissioned for a herbal or prepared for a particular print. ^[14]

Weiditz's Narcissus , reproduced from the 1530 volume by the Linda Hall Library, offers a useful example. Bulbs and tangled roots are fully exposed. Upright leaves can be followed down to their origin, and a separate flowering stem stands at the left. The parts are brought together across the page in an arrangement that helps a reader inspect them. Even the curled and drooping flowers remain sharply outlined. The printed plant has an emphatic presence, but its roots do not disappear into a supporting lump of soil. ^[15]

In Tuft of Cowslips , the point of greatest growth is also the point of greatest concealment. Leaves crowd in front of other leaves; the earth covers what lies beneath; the smaller plants keep their place among the larger ones. Identification and visual pleasure coexist, yet the artist preserves the experience of encountering a densely occupied patch. The difference becomes especially clear at the bottom of each image. In the herbal, the roots extend the plant's description. In the gouache, the shadowed earth establishes its weight and its contact with a surface.

Both works reward attention to awkwardness. The narcissus flowers droop at different angles; the cowslip leaves turn, crease and interrupt each other. A useful botanical image need not look geometrically tidy, and a painterly study can record considerable structural information. Their shared attention to specific forms makes the difference in arrangement more revealing than a broad division between art and science would suggest.

Dürer's own writing offers a way to think about this patient examination without inventing a story of the sheet's making. In an extract from the third book of his proportion theory, William Martin Conway's 1889 translation has him advise artists to attend closely to nature: “For Art standeth firmly fixed in Nature.” Dürer then connects successful invention with the knowledge an artist has accumulated through study. Observation becomes something remembered and worked with. The passage does not explain this particular plant study, but it helps us understand why the forms of an ordinary tuft could merit sustained artistic labour. ^[16]

The sheet's recorded collecting history is much later. The National Gallery traces it through a private collection in England and Hal O'Nians in London, then into the Armand Hammer Collection in 1971. It entered the Gallery as a gift in 1991. That sequence establishes its modern passage to Washington without filling the earlier gaps with the histories of other Dürer drawings. ^[1]

What remains most immediate is the balance between abundance and restraint. The clump presses outwards, nearly reaching both sides of the sheet, while the flowers rise into generous open space. Small strokes distinguish veins, flower mouths and grass blades; larger areas gather those details into leaves and earth. The result holds together at two distances: as a clear silhouette of low foliage and tall blooms, and as a place where the eye can keep finding another crossing stem or folded edge.