Pieter Langendijk

[1] Pieter became a weaver and pattern draughtsman and joined artist circles, where he began to write poetry.

Quincampoix, or the gamblers on the Stock Exchange became very famous, written in the notorious year 1720 that John Law ruined many investors in Paris.

Arlequin Actionist was a commedia dell'arte farce on the stockjobbery, one act long, with a real fight, dance and music.

Pieter lived in Haarlem's Proveniershuis, where he was given free accommodation in return for writing a history of the city.

With exposition, intrigue and crisis, he respected the unities of time, place and action, using this classicist form to hold a mirror up to the bourgeoisie.

He has a friend called Jan, who proposes to act out one of his barons, so to flirt with the maid of Charlotte: Klaartje.

Bundle of his yearly poems for the city of Haarlem, which formed a series on the Counts of Holland, were compiled with engravings by his nephew Hendrik Spilman in 1745.

[1] His work on the history of Haarlem was never published, but his manuscript was used by Gerrit Willem van Oosten de Bruyn in 1765.