In 1873 the British genre painter John L. Ritchie also made the painting "Rogues in bond", which shows two villains, marked as cardsharpers by a stack of cards and a mask and tied to a tree trunk, while angry townpeople in the background approach the two miserable figures. Our painting seems to depict a similar scene that seems to take place the moment before the fraudsters' arrest: in a ruin in a remote grove, two poorly dressed men are counting and weighing coins. The surrounding utensils - masks, maps, a musical instrument and a box of tinctures, and not least a book on the questioning of fate - distinguish them as traveling merchants who earn their money with all kinds of humbug. Apparently, some inhabitants of the town on the left in the background have found out about their actions and, waiting for a suitable moment to arrest, have entrenched themselves in the forest. [FS]