John Law as Don Quixote with Bombario as Sancho Panza. Etching, ca. 1720.

Date:
[1720?]
Reference:
812234i
Part of:
Groote tafereel der dwaasheid.
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About this work

Description

John Law was a Scottish financier whose reforms in France led to a financial bubble which burst in 1720. The following is based on the British Museum online catalogue. Law is mounted on a braying ass hung about with bags of money and a chest labelled "Bombarioos geldkist 1720" (Bombario's money chest 1720); he holds a flag labelled, "Ik koom ik koom Dulcinia" in reference to the lady Dulcinea in Don Quixote. On the left a devil squirts a clysterpipe into the mouth of the donkey which is dragged by chains from a metal collar, towards the Quinquenpoix coffee-house (where Law was based in Paris) whose keeper is Dulcinea; the crowd includes a Jew, a sailor and working men as well as merchants. Behind Law sits a devil who holds up the ass's tail while it defecates share-certificates and paper money which a mixed crowd runs forward to grab. Another devil wearing a fool's cap and carrying a scourge hovers above. Beside the ass, Bombario as Sancho Panza, wearing a robe decorated with fish-hooks and with a quill behind his ear, is perched on a large toad or frog; he hands a bag of money to Law. In the foreground, to left, a group of objects connected with worthwhile trade have been kicked aside: the caduceus of Mercury, ledgers, a portable desk, coins, papers, a bale, barrel and roll of tobacco. In the background, ships sail on the South Sea

Publication/Creation

[Amsterdam] : [publisher not identified], [1720?]

Physical description

1 print : etching, with engraving ; image and lettering 20.7 x 27.5 cm

Lettering

Law, als een tweede Don Quichot, op Sanches graauwtje zit ten spot. Dulcinia en 't actie roth, Verzoekt den Lawen Don-Quichot ... Weet vast een ider te bespotten, Daar een zot maakt veel duizent zotten. Translation of lettering: "Law, like a second Don Quixote, sits ridiculed on Sancho's grey mule" Below the image, engraved Dutch verses in three columns

References note

Frederik Muller, De nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, Amsterdam 1863, part 2, no. 3559 (24)
British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol. 2, London 1954, no. 1662
Arthur H. Cole, The great mirror of folly (Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid). An economic-bibliographical study, Boston 1949, no. 24

Reference

Wellcome Collection 812234i

Notes

'Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid', Amsterdam, 1720, is a collection of literary and pictorial satires relating to the Dutch speculation bubble of 1720, which occurred simultaneously with the South Sea bubble and the Mississippi bubble involving John Law. This print is one of the many in that collection: see A.H. Cole, op. cit.

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