John Law: his rise to eminence and riches in France, and subsequent decline, resulting in the Dutch financial crisis of 1720. Etching, 1720.

In the centre, John Law in Paris takes his leave of two men identified in the British Museum online catalogue, loc. cit. as the Duke of Orleans (Regent of France) and the Duke of Bourbon, with obsequious courtiers and guards. Law is presumably the man on the right, shaking hands with the Duke of Bourbon, while the man identified as the Duke of Orleans bows low before him on the left. In an open square beyond, on the far side stands the old Louvre and other buildings

At the top is a medallion bust portrait of John Law holding a passport (labelled "Paspoort"). Snakes and thorns frame the portrait, and hooked fishing rods extend on either side in front of spiders' webs. Engraved legends explain their meaning

Sixteen small designs around the central scene show episodes in Law's career. Anticlockwise from left of the portrait: he feeds a horse in a stable; he runs to join a mounted troop of soldiers; he pours wine for a lady and gentleman; he kills Edward ("Beau") Wilson in a duel (this event actually took place in Bloomsbury Square in London but is portrayed as if in an Italian city); he takes flight by sea; trunks are brought out to him as his horse is prepared for a journey to Venice; he sits gambling at backgammon with another man in a chamber in Venice; he presents his financial scheme to Louis XIV and his council; as Controller General of the Finances of France he sits in a council chamber addressed by obsequious attendants; he sits at a carpet-covered table while three well-dressed men seek to invest their money with him; a crowd assembles by a harbour where broadsides advertise shares for sale; a crowd of men holding share certificates on which masks are printed gather outside a fortified gateway; a mob, including fishwives, throw stones at Law's carriage; the carriage is attacked outside the Palais Royal; Law sits at a table approached by a disappointed investor; he watches while two men pour coins into a basin and a third stirs them as if they were pancakes

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

1 print : etching, with engraving ; platemark 28.8 x 38 cm

Opkomts [i.e. Opkomst], midden, en geen eynde van den doortrapte Jan Lauw. Translation of lettering: "Rise, middle and no end of the crafty John Law". Below the central scene, Dutch verses engraved in four columns

'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.

Frederik Muller, De nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, Amsterdam 1863, part 2, no. 3596 (61)

British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol. 2, London 1978, no. 1686

Arthur H. Cole, The great mirror of folly (Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid). An economic-bibliographical study, Boston 1949, no. 61

Frans De Bruyn, 'Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid and the speculative bubble of 1720: a bibliographical enigma and an economic force', Eighteenth-century life, 2000, 24: 62-87, pp. 85-86, n. 33

Wellcome Collection 816080i