De wereld is een speeltoneel (The World is a Theater)

This Dutch engraving presents society as a stage, with a central theatrical scene surrounded by eight vignettes depicting human folly—gambling, feasting, seduction, and pretense. The architectural frame, ornamental cartouches, and classical columns echo contemporary emblem books and moral allegories. The composition exemplifies early 18th-century satirical prints that arranged multiple scenes around a central theme, a format preceding both Hogarth's narrative sequences and the later German Bilderbogen picture-sheets. Through detailed line engraving, the artist depicts merchants, clergy, servants, and nobility engaged in various vices. This moralizing visual tradition—combining theater metaphors and satirical observation—established conventions that would evolve into sequential narrative art and eventually the modern comic strip's episodic storytelling.