Veritable portrait du tres fameux Seigneur messire Quinquenpoix [graphic].

Veritable portrait du tres fameux Seigneur messire Quinquenpoix [graphic].

No. 1: of stront of Koning

[Netherlands or France?] : [s.n.], [1720]

1 print : etching and engraving ; image plate mark 155 x 104 mm, text plate mark 225 x 321 mm

paper

Satire on John Law's economic system and the resulting French, British, and Dutch financial crises when the Mississippi Bubble and the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720. Law is referred to as "Quinquenpoix", alluding to the Compagnie des Indes' location in rue Quinquampoix, Paris."

Inner plate: A portrait of John Law being crowned by Folly rests above a cauldron fueled by banknotes and stock certificates. The crown bears peacock feathers (pride), thistle leaves (Law was Scottish), fool's bells, and the date MDCCXX [1720]. Other symbolic figures include Envy eating a snake, Diogenes with his lantern, Vanity holding a picture of the Fall of Icarus in place of of her traditional mirror, a satyr holding a scorpion, and Despair with instruments of destruction (dagger and torch).

Outer plate: Text describes the scene on the inner plate as if discovered by a "modern Diogenes" seeking (and failing to find) someone governed by reason in Paris. Text includes casual anti-Semitism (paper money and stock certificates are "more false than the Talmud").

Engraved broadside made from an inner plate for the image (with Dutch captions; a later state has French captions; others are intermediate) and an outer plate for the surrounding text (in French; another version has Dutch text).

British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum (1870-1954) (George) 1612
Muller, F. De Nederlandsche Geschiedenis in Platen, 3572c

Netherlands.

ART 247- 787 (size M)

247787