Unknown Maker, Chinese

This plate, one from a set of six made in China for export, warns the Dutch to not repeat the mistakes of the British. It is thought to satirize the South Sea Bubble, a financial crisis that ruined a number of wealthy British investors in 1720. Founded in London in 1711, the South Sea Company traded enslaved Africans in the Spanish-occupied Americas, working on the assumption that a treaty with Spain would provide more favorable trade conditions. Instead, the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 imposed a high tax on imported slaves. Still, the success of the company’s limited voyages drove stock speculation without profits until the bubble burst in 1720.