17th-Century Dutch Banquet Scenes — The Public Domain Review

The United Provinces of the Dutch Republic constituted the mightiest mercantile powerhouse in Europe during much of the seventeenth century. Massive personal fortunes as well as a flush bourgeoisie were, as Julie Berger Hochstrasser notes, built on what we now understand to be fundamental inputs of capitalism: rapacious extraction and privatization of natural resources; exploitation of waged labor and hyper-exploitation of unwaged labor; colonial theft; the production of profit through circulation of goods; and, critically, the mystification of these very dealings through their ellison from public view. In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx noted that the open realm of the marketplace, where purchase-ready commodities appear, stands in direct contrast to the “hidden abode” of production sites where exploitation occurs. In his tome, The Embarrassment of Riches, Simon Schama describes the streets of seventeenth-century Amsterdam teeming with delectable goods from near and far; pastries and taffeta, porcelain and books, haberdashery and nautical instruments all clamored for the eyes (and purses) of passers-by, many of whom could indulge in a satisfying trinket as well as the occasional splurge. Unseen by polite society were the sufferings on plantations and ships, in mines and refineries, that made this cornucopia possible.