Hendrik Gerritsz Pot

In the winter of 1636 to 1637 the price of tulip bulbs in Holland climbed to insane heights and then collapsed almost overnight. Fortunes made on paper vanished, and Haarlem, a centre of the trade, was left stunned. A local painter, Hendrik Gerritsz Pot, answered with a small, biting picture called Flora's Wagon of Fools.

In it the flower goddess Flora rides a wind-blown wagon toward the sea, clutching prize tulips under a tulip flag. Around her sit figures of gluttony, greed and empty talk, while Haarlem weavers who abandoned their looms to speculate trail behind on foot. The whole load rolls straight into the water. It is one of the earliest paintings to make a financial bubble its subject.

Pot was more than a satirist. An officer in the Haarlem civic guard, he painted its group portraits, and in 1632 he crossed to London and made portraits of King Charles I and his queen, Henrietta Maria, that are still in the British royal collection.