The English coffee house in Amsterdam: dealers conversing and raving during the share price boom of 1720. Etching, ca. 1720.

In the centre, an oval with the interior of the English coffee house in Amsterdam (nicknamed Quinquenpoix after the location of the stock exchange in Paris). At the top of the oval 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. Monkeys on either side blow bubbles; at the bottom is a coat of arms with three windmills. The oval is surrounded by scenes alluding to the 'Wind trade' (short-selling) and Dutch towns where investors had been particularly active: Hoorn, Weesp, Muyden, Utrecht and Harlingen (British Museum online catalogue)

In the centre, a man holds his hands in front of his head, and another lies raving on the ground, representing the garbled French words in a banderolle meaning "All those who come here are attacked by diseases of losing one's mind"

[Amsterdam] : [publisher not identified], [1720?]

1 print : etching ; platemark 31 x 38.7 cm

Quinquanpoix. ... Verses in Dutch in four columns: Dus ziet gy Quinquenpoix verbeeld, Vol Aktienarren uit wier wezen, De vreugd of blydschap is te lezen ... Om eens in 't midde van hun brallen, Met Faeton ter neer te vallen.

'Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid', Amsterdam, 1720, is a collection of literary and pictorial satires relating to the Dutch speculation bubble of 1720, which occurred simultaneously with the South Sea bubble and the Mississippi bubble involving John Law. This print is one of the many in that collection: see A.H. Cole, op. cit.

Frederik Muller, De nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, Amsterdam 1863, part 2, no. 3545 (10)

British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol. 2, London 1954, no. 1649

Arthur H. Cole, The great mirror of folly (Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid). An economic-bibliographical study, Boston 1949, no. 10

Frans De Bruyn, 'Reading Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid: an emblem book of the folly of speculation in the bubble year 1720', Eighteenth-century life, 2000, 24: 1-42, p. 39, n. 31

Wellcome Collection 811589i