Pieter Nolpe's cartoon pokes fun at the speculative tulip trade. In the center of the print, in an inn shaped like a jester's cap, the tulip trade is conducted. The jester's cap symbolizes folly; the tulip trade was one big joke. While the traders are busy bidding and overbidding, the blooming tulips on both the far left and right sides of the image are discarded; they are worthless. In the upper left corner, a devil with an hourglass symbolizes the transience of the mania; the time of the tulip is over. In the background, the goddess Flora, patron saint of nature and flowers, is depicted. She is chased away on a donkey, another symbol of folly, by a group of peasants wielding sticks. The print serves not only as entertainment but also as a warning for the future. People had learned from the tulip craze, and the tulip trade would slowly recover.