Third edition of one of the most remarkable works in the history of finance. Few books equal the visual power, satirical brilliance, or bibliographical complexity of Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid. First published in Amsterdam in 1720, in the very year of the financial collapses it depicts, this extraordinary work stands as the most ambitious and visually arresting contemporary response to the speculative mania that engulfed France, England and the Dutch Republic.
The work chronicles the rise, frenzy, and catastrophic collapse of the Mississippi Scheme in France under John Law (1671-1729) and the South Sea Bubble in England, speculative ventures designed, in part, to consolidate and manage national debt (in Englands case tied to the funding of the navy), but which spiralled into one of the first great international stock market crashes. Laws Compagnie dOccident, with its monopoly over Louisiana and trade along the Mississippi, ignited feverish dealing in Paris Rue Quincampoix, London answered with its own speculative excesses, and the contagion swiftly spread to Amsterdam.
The Dutch, seasoned participants in organised finance, responded not merely with alarm but with satire of unparalleled inventiveness. The Tafereel der dwaasheid gathers together emblematic engravings, caricatures, poems, plays, pamphlets and moralising texts, all exposing the greed, credulity and collective madness of the "wind trade", transactions in nothing more substantial than air.
The engravings are by turns humorous, grotesque, theatrical, and occasionally deliberately obscene. They chart the entire arc of speculation: the seduction of investors, the carnival atmosphere of trading houses and coffee rooms, the frenzied crowds, and finally ruin and flight. Law himself appears in portrait, placed squarely at the centre of events.
The publication history of the Tafereel der dwaasheid is famously intricate. Four editions of the letterpress are known, the present work corresponds to the third edition as classified by Muller. Within each edition the number and arrangement of plates varies considerably from copy to copy. Muller recorded 74 plates in the most extensive contemporary published list, yet barely any copy of any edition contains them all (some serving as alternatives), and several plates frequently encountered are absent from that list. The present work includes 73 plates from Muller's list of 74 (omitting no. 18), contains a duplicate of no. 54, and includes the engraved register listing 74 items together with 4 plates not in Mullers principal list (Muller 3611-3613 and 3615), including different portraits and the map of Louisiana on the Mississippi. Together they form one of the most striking and bizarre monuments in all economic literature, a merciless visual anatomy of financial hysteria.
The present work appears here in a striking contemporary gold-tooled binding. This binding is the work of the so-called "Bird's Head Bindery" (active ca. 1728-1765?), according to Jan Storm van Leeuwen. The decorations are made up from several impressions of 5 different stamps and 5 different rolls. Two stamps on the present binding seem to be unrecorded by Storm van Leeuwen for this bindery, namely the lozenge-shaped stamp on the spine and the small cornerpieces on the spine surrounding the lozenge-shaped stamp. These seem to be variants of the bindery's recorded stamps, but several stamps also do bear similarities to other major Amsterdam binderies of the early 18th century like the so-called "Double Drawer Handle Bindery".
With plate "Lauw-maands herdenking ... Nieuwjaarsgeschenk" (no. 54 - 3589 Muller) included twice as plates 54-55 and lacking plate "Monument consacré - Ter eeuwiger gedagtenisse..." (no. 18 - 3553 Muller). The hinges are weakened, the head of the spine is slightly damaged, the corners and edges of the boards show slight signs of wear, with a 3.5 x 1 cm repair to the leather on the back board (not affecting the gold-tooling). The first flyleaf is partially loose, a large tear in plates 7 and 12 (resp. nos. 6 and 11 Muller) repaired on the verso, some plates with small tears along the folding lines (slightly affecting the illustration of plate 51 (same no. Muller)), and the map of Enkhuisen is torn along the paper stub it is mounted on (not affecting the plate). Some occasional browning, foxing, and staining. Otherwise in very good condition. Cole, The Great Mirror of Folly, nrs. 1-4, 6-8, 10-71, 73; De Bruyn, "Het Groote Tafereel ...," in: Eighteenth-Century Life XXIV (2000), pp. 62-87; Goetzmann, The Great Mirror of Folly (2013), esp. pp. 35-51 (bibliogr. analysis by K. Forrer); Kress 3217; Landwehr 230; Lipperheide Xf 5; Muller, Historieplaten, esp. nos. 3536-3609; pp. 103-131; Sabin 28932; STCN (various issues and made-up copies: the present work resembles 228136539); Van Leeuwen, "Dutch Decorated Bookbinding", I (2006), pp. 228-284.