Printing creates happiness. On the left we see the producing side of texts: a pen, a lyre and compasses representing scholarship, science and poetry. The reams of paper will be changed into the books on the right, Mercury being the bringer of news and also the purveyor of riches: protector of both merchants and thieves - printers come in both categories. The year 1440 that can be seen on the press was supposed to be the year when the Dutchman Laurens Janszoon Coster invented printing.

A bunch of grapes is hanging from the legend, books, quils and a packet of paper are lying in front. We look into a printing office with the frontwall changed into a curtain, as if it was a stage. In the back there is a vine-yard, on the left people are making wine. One man is standing in a big barrel next to a wine-press. The printing press and the wine-press are related, as literature is related to wine. In the words of Horace: No poems can be created that are worth reading or able to withstand time by those that drink water. The grapes symbolize abundance. In the seventeenth century people still wondered about the enormous number of books that was brought forth by the printing press, as if it was a horn of plenty that would give even the most exacting scholar his fill.

A Dutch tradition has it that printing was invented in the Netherlands in the early 15th century. Laurens Janszoon Coster, citizen of Haarlem is shown here. In his hand we see the letter A. As late as the sixties it was thaught in Dutch schools that he cut the letters in wood, while walking in the dunes. The wooden letters were meant for a little nephew who was to learn the alphabet in this way. Coster dropped the letter in the sand and thus invented printing. His journeyman Gutenberg (or Faust in some versions) ran away to Mainz, claiming to be the inventor. In the back a printing office is shown. The designer of this mark forgot to put in the timbers with which the press was braced from the ceiling. On the right we see the cathedral of Haarlem in the background with the river Spaarne in front.