Section of a ceramic plaque showing livestock prices

Section of a ceramic plaque showing livestock prices. The images and text refer to the malpractice of the merchant community in 1817, who compounded food shortages:

“Oh! Avarice know then that I am utterly deceived, that my ripening grain has vanished” (O! Geiz, du hast mich sehr betrogen, daß mir die Frücht davon geflogen).

The use of present tense at various points on the plaque, as well as the dating ‘1817’ on the sacks of grain (see other image of the plaque), suggests that it was produced contemporaneously; its discovery in the United States suggests that it may have been carried there by immigrants of the era.