Law, Like Another Don Quixote, Sits on Sancho’s Ass, Being Everyone’s Fool
Mr. John Law, King’s Councilor in All Affairs, Controller-General of Finances in 1720
Fair of the Wholesale Wind-Peddler
Anonymous, 1720, hand colored etching and engraving
Addressing an international audience with its bilingual verse, this print caricatures John Law as a “master of wind” and a “monopolist” of empty promises. The French text laments that “faith...is dead,” having been destroyed by mass idolatry of the banker and his “System.” Law levitates atop a cloud, with a windmill on his head; from his fingers float pieces of paper inscribed with such phrases as “Shares full of sufferings.” A collector likely added the dazzling red of Law’s waistcoat and other color accents, underscoring the power of a seductive surface to obscure an impoverished reality. The same image soon after decorated a fashionable brass box for holding tobacco, the main crop that Law promised he would grow in Louisiana.
: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs
The New York Public Library believes that this item is in the public domain under the laws of the United States, but did not make a determination as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries.
