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The first great international investment fraud & scandal,
including 10 very rare broadsheets with woodcut illustrations

[TAFEREEL DER DWAASHEID].
[Collection of satirical plates and illustrated poems related to Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid].
Including:
-11 very rare broadsheets, each of the first 10 with a satirical poem and 1 or more woodcut illustrations, the last with a verse by Joost van den Vondel and an engraved illustration.
[Netherlands, ca. 1720] (items 1-10); Rotterdam, Pieter vander Veer, 1721 (item 11). 1mo. Modern green half cloth.
-8 engraved prints with letterpress text by Jan de Ridder.
[Netherlands, ca. 1720]. Folio. Modern green half cloth.
-45 engraved satirical plates (including 2 made up of 4 separate prints each, and with a duplicate plate).
[Netherlands, ca. 1721]. Various formats. Each in passepartout.
-12 separate prints (a few with letterpress text) and 2 copies of an engraved map in 2 parts, showing the coast of South America and the South Sea.
[Netherlands, ca. 1721]. Various formats.
The whole kept together in a large 20th-century green half cloth portfolio (50×70 cm).
€ 17,500
Collection of satirical plates and illustrated poems related to Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid, a famous collection of texts and plates satirizing the Englishman John Law, his Mississippi Company, and the international land and trading speculation in worthless shares, known as the South Sea Bubble of 1719-1720, which resulted in an international scandal. Nearly every copy or set has a different makeup.
The present set of plates doesn't include the text, but does include a set of 10 very rare broadsheets with satirical poems and woodcut illustrations, according to Muller "the woodcuts especially are very rare, for some I have seen no other copy than the one described here". Other rare items in the collection are the 2 copies of a, non-satirical, engraved map of the coast of South America and the South Sea, in two parts with the titles "De Zuyd-zee" and "De Pacifische of Zuyd zee", not listed by Muller, and a series of 8 engraved prints, with letterpress text, by Jan de Ridder.
Many items, including the rare broadsheets, untrimmed, with most deckles intact. Some items slightly worn, especially among the loose prints, but the others in very good condition, only occasionally restored at the folds. Frans de Bruyn, "Het Groote Tafereef der Dwaasheid and the Speculative Bubble of 1720", in: Eighteenth-Century Life, vol. 24, no. 1 (winter 2000), pp. 62-87; Muller, Historieplaten, pp. 103-132.
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Related Subjects:

Americas  >  South America
Art, architecture & photography  >  Caricature, Costume & Satire | Drawings, Prints & Watercolours
History, law & philosophy  >  Economics, Numismatics & Trade
Literature & linguistics  >  Dutch Literature
Low countries  >  Art. Architecture & Literature | History, Economics, Law & Politics