print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.9622
- Title
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Object: Quinquanpoix
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Series: Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid
- Description
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Dutch satire on the financial crisis of 1720; in the centre an oval with the interior of a coffee-house in the rue Quinquempoix in Paris. The room is filled with a large number of men, including one recognisable by his beard as a Jew, talking together in groups and holding papers; in the centre one man has been knocked by another to the floor, losing his wig. Behind them a woman holding a stick raises a finger at brawlers; in the centre, a waiter holds a coffee pot. The further part of the room is divided by a glazed screen, behind which, on the right, a woman prepares coffee. The oval is surrounded by a branches of foliage at the top is a bust of John Law and above him Mercury dressed as a fool, carries a bauble and has a basket of toy windmills suspended around his neck, a monkey on either side blows bubbles; at the bottom is a coat of arms with three windmills, its crest a fool's head with a rat on its hat surrounded by bladders and windmills, a motto on a ribbon translates, "abandon hope all you who enter here". The oval is surrounded by scenes alluding to the 'Wind Trade' and Dutch towns where investors had been particularly active: at top left, a man throws himself from a rock into the sea; on a scroll in front of this scene is a group of horns (relating to the town of Hoorn) and a cat attacked by rats; another sheet of paper above has a picture of a boar and an inscription relating to the town Wesep; at top right, further sheets of paper, one with lettering referring to the emptiness of the town of Muyden, another sheet with a woman and baby sitting in a large basket, another with a man digging outside the town of Utrecht, and another with a man wheeling a barrow referring to insurance for shell-fish from Harlingen; above, Icarus falls from the sky having flown too near the sun while Daedalus flies on, and below rats climb into a strong box; lower right, Phaeton's chariot is over thrown by a bolt of lightning, and a woman representing Virtue is trampled under foot by Envy; at lower left, a ship sails to the Mississippi while Pallas, sits on the shore in chains with symbols of the arts around her, an overturned globe, her owl, an artist's palette, a book and a violin, above her a game-board with an owl. With with engraved title at the top, inscriptions, and below an engraved Dutch verse in four columns.1720
Etching
- Production date
- 1720
- Dimensions
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Height: 311 millimetres
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Width: 379 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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For the game of "pluck the owl", see M. Bury, The Print in Italy (BM exhibition catalogue, 2001), no. 103
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One of a collection of prints bound together in two volumes c.1721 known as 'Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid'; for more information, see 1868,0808.9602.
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated events
- Associated Event: Financial Bubbles 1720
- Acquisition date
- 1858
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.9622
