'Grand Soleil d'Or' 1770
The Dutch were hybridizing tazettas by the 1630s. One of the earliest writers to discuss the raising of new daffodils from seed was Henrik van Oosten in his work The Dutch Gardener, published in 1703 (translated into English in 1711).
The oldest tazettas still on the commercial market date to around or after the French Revolution and have French names, reflecting the geopolitics of the Low Countries (the Netherlands and Belgium). Most notable are 'Grand Monarque' (1759), 'Grand Soleil d'Or' (1770) and 'Grand Primo Citroniere' (1780).
A "modern" concerted effort to produce "new" tazettas began in the 1840s and is credited to Ernst Krelage and the firm of Valentijn Schertzer en Zonen (Valentine Schertzer and Sons), under the direction of Hendrik Dirk Kruseman, Jr. Kruseman in particular was credited with advancing tazettas with his novelty cultivars. These varieties reached American catalogs in the late 1860s and dominated the American market until the 1890s.
This wave of "new" or "novelty" tazettas seems to have pursued two different commercial markets - the commercial cut flower trade and the indoor or conservatory home gardener. As daffodils finally became a popular flower in the 1870s and 1880s (both in the UK and America), a cut flower industry developed to supply street vendors hawking flowers for the vase. The cultivars bred for this industry were, and are, tall and stout, able to withstand the knocking about of picking, wrapping and shipping to market. One of the better known cut flower centers was the Scilly Isles off Cornwall, England. In the 1880s a long list of now-lost cultivars were grown; period photographs show tall, robust stems still in bud. Intriguingly, many of the cultivars grown had French names.
Unsurprisingly, tall and stout plants were not well suited for growing in porcelain containers in the front parlor. Thus, short plants with strong stems were developed. The short foliage wouldn't flop onto the furniture and the stout stem created a pleasing display. Photographs of a few better known varieties appear in horticultural journals in the early 1900s - after it became affordable to publish photographs but before indoor daffodils fell from fashion.
As Dutch hybridizers worked on plant forms for the two dominant markets, they also greatly improved the florets themselves. Petal substance became thicker and less "papery," improving both color saturation and floret life. Petal forms became broader and more rounded, creating a "fuller" appearance. The coronas were slowly but surely much improved, becoming longer, wider, or more saturated in color, resulting in a stronger punch of color.
The end of the 19th century was a time of great experimentation in daffodil hybridizing. Crosses were made between different species, giving rise to new forms. Some lasted on the commercial market, some barely held on by their toenails, and many quickly came and went.
The most successful were the "poetaz" tazettas, hybrids between "true" tazettas and N. poeticus ("poet") daffodils. These hit the American market around 1907, and quickly displaced "true" tazettas from bulb catalogs by World War I.