Tuin met een rechthoekige parterre met in het centrum een cirkelvormig compartiment met een boom 1615

This engraving, whose artist and date are unknown, depicts a garden with a rectangular parterre centered around a circular area with a tree. Images of gardens such as these give us insight into the values of elites in the early modern period. In countries like the Netherlands, where this print is preserved, the wealthy merchant class had a large degree of political and economic power. These images remind us that, like the country's famous tulip mania, gardens could become status symbols. As such, they are part of a broader culture of competitive consumption. The labyrinthine qualities on display here also evoke similar themes in early modern drama, which frequently questioned human agency. Studying prints like these using resources like auction catalogs and estate inventories allows historians to reconstruct the economic and social worlds they came from.