• Home
  • Events
  • Exhibitions
  • Fortune and Folly in 1720
  • Empire of the Imagination

Empire of the Imagination

Explore More Galleries

    Introduction: Picturing The World's First Bubble Economy

    a chaotic street scene where the goddess fortuna walks in a gust of wind dolling out stock shares to a rambunctious crowd

    Selling the New World

    map

    John Law, Rakish Financier

    John Law standing in a french garden in a large wig and the style of long three piece suit popular at the time

    Lady Credit, Fickle Goddess

    A chaotic scene with many people tearing at a well dressed man in the center. There is a nun with a rosary kneeled over him. Behind him there is a well-dressed woman holding paper notes and a blind pauper boy

    Staging Folly

    a central scene of judgement by the devil is surrounded with draperies and flanked by smaller images of exploration

    Commerce Goes to Hell

    a group of grotesquely interpreted wealthy people is rowed by a strange demon with a vase on his head and birds flying around him

    Afterlives

    a grotesque man with a round belly full of gold coins squats over a rotunda while excreting paper money from both orifices

Explore Events

  • Exhibitions
    • Upcoming Exhibitions
    • Past Exhibitions
    • Archived Exhibition Resources
    • Community Showcases
    • Online Exhibitions
  • Tours at NYPL

More at NYPL

  • Need Help?
  • Get a Library Card
  • Find Your Next Book