An interesting chapter having NOTHING to do with recent events.

What is this picture?
Straight from the mind of Wiki:

Flora's mallewagen. Allegory of the Tulip Mania. The goddess of flowers is riding along with three drinking and money weighing men and two women on a car. Weavers from Haarlem have thrown away their equipment and are following the car. The destiny of the car is shown in the background: it will disappear in the sea.
Year
circa 1640

Since I want to be careful to not bruise any delicate feelings out there, I'm going to let "The Wik" provide most of the text as well.
The bad boy pictured to the left, in a piece of period "flower porn", was the prize winner, Semper Augustus, a bulb of which was traded for 12 acres of land.
I'm going to salt some more tulip porn about - just for "the visuals".
The notation of the next pic, a catalog page, lists a low-end price of 3000 florins - at a time when a skilled, Dutch craftsman made one tenth that amount in a year.
Time for more Wiki;

"Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and, one after the other, they rushed to the tulip marts, like flies around a honey-pot. Every one imagined that the passion for tulips would last for ever, and that the wealthy from every part of the world would send to Holland, and pay whatever prices were asked for them. The riches of Europe would be concentrated on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, and poverty banished from the favoured clime of Holland. Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maidservants, even chimney-sweeps and old clotheswomen, dabbled in tulips."

"By 1636, tulips were traded on the exchanges of numerous Dutch towns and cities. This encouraged trading in tulips by all members of society; Mackay recounted people selling or trading their other possessions in order to speculate in the tulip market, such as an offer of 12 acres (49,000 m2) of land for one of two existing Semper Augustus bulbs."





This next, a still life, has some non-tulip (read cheapass) flowers as well.









I really like this next one. It's got nice "vectoring" as I recall from some long-ago media class.

Final Wiki fact:
The Dutch of the 17th century were far smarter than we've been of late.
Short selling was outlawed in 1610 - and 1621, 1630 and 1636.