[TAFEREEL DER DWAASHEID]. LAW, John (subject).
Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid, vertoonende de opkomst, voortgang en ondergang der actie, bubbel en windnegotie, in Vrankrijk, Engeland en de Nederlanden, gepleegt in den Jaare MDCCXX.
[Amsterdam], 1720. Folio (ca. 39 x 25.5 cm). With the title-page printed in red and black and 76 engraved plates, mostly double-page and several are larger folding sheets, including several maps, the plate with the complete set of 52 playing cards, and an extra copy of plate 18 (Muller) loosely inserted at the front of the work. Contemporary elaboratly gold-tooled mottled calf, sewn on 6 supports with corresponding raised bands on the spine and with the title lettered in gold on the spine, gold-tooled board edges, marbled edges, bound by the so-called Double Drawer Handle Bindery in Amsterdam (between 1720 and 1742? - Storm van Leeuwen) [1], [1 blank], 25, [1], 52, "31" [= 29), [1 blank], 8, 10 pp. and engraved ll.
€ 9,500
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 of the South Sea Bubble of 1719-1720, which resulted in an international scandal. The speculation began in Paris, London and Hamburg, spreading to the Netherlands in the summer of 1720. While plays satirizing the speculation already opened in September 1720, the bubble really burst in October. Pieter Langendijk and Gysbert Tysens have been identified as authors of some of the plays. The book also provides the texts of official documents relating to the Dutch trading companies involved.
Text and plates were originally issued in parts, and were continuously supplemented over a longer period. Work on the book as a whole must have begun after the Amsterdam disturbances of 5 October 1720, though some of the plays and other items had been separately published before that. There are four editions known of the letterpress, of which this one is listed as the first by Muller. Within each edition the number and makeup of the plates varies greatly from copy to copy. Muller gives a list of 74 plates in the most extensive contemporary published list, but no copy of any edition includes them all (some are alternatives) and several plates frequently included are not in those lists. The present copy includes 72 in Muller's list of 74 (omitting nos. 57 and 74) and includes 4 not in that list (Muller 3611-3613 and 3615). The book is an important source for multidisciplinary research, e.g. iconology, economic history, colloquial proverbs and idioms.
The binding is very slightly rubbed, the joints have been professionally reinforced, slightly browned throughout, some plates show small tears along the folding lines, without any loss. Otherwise in very good condition. De Bruyn, "Het Groote Tafereel ... ," in: Eighteenth-Century Life XXIV (2000), pp. 62-87; Kress 3217 (eds. not distinguished); Muller, Historieplaten II, pp. 103-124; Van Rijn, het groote tafereel der dwaasheid, 1905; Sabin 28932 (eds. not distinguished); STCN 254984576; cf. (slightly differing collation or fingerprint) STCN 254984185, 293084076, 228136539; for the binding: Storm van Leeuwen vol. I, pp. 228-284.
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