Interesting. I can read old Dutch but it doesn’t really mean much to me. They’re all cautionary rhymes and it seems greed is a common theme. The top row of number cards seem to be down on their luck people while the bottom cards are greedy people.
For example, the lower-left displays coins raining into a jar and it says:
>I have to display myself in this fashion
>
>And cleanse myself of misbehaviour as director
Lower right shows a bird pecking out someone’s eye and it says:
>The raven who charges double interest or terrible premiums
>
>Will have the light taken from his face by an eagle
4 comments
Interesting. I can read old Dutch but it doesn’t really mean much to me. They’re all cautionary rhymes and it seems greed is a common theme. The top row of number cards seem to be down on their luck people while the bottom cards are greedy people.
For example, the lower-left displays coins raining into a jar and it says:
>I have to display myself in this fashion
>
>And cleanse myself of misbehaviour as director
Lower right shows a bird pecking out someone’s eye and it says:
>The raven who charges double interest or terrible premiums
>
>Will have the light taken from his face by an eagle
I google searched some of the texts in the kmage. I found this site:
https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_taf002tafe01_01/_taf002tafe01_01_0191.php
Seems like playing cards from 1720 called ‘Het groote Tafereel der dwaasheid’ / ‘The Great Scene of Foolishness’
I looked up some of the phrases on google and this old newspaper explains it: https://kranten.archiefalkmaar.nl/issue/HC/1924-04-19/edition/null/page/7
It seems to be a mockery of (rich) people losing money in the ‘Amsterdamse windhandel’, a stock market crisis in 1720.
When the ‘f’ was an ‘s’ and the ‘s’ was also an ‘s’.
I miss reading 18th century stuff for research. Or well, I don’t. But it was amazing at times.