Magic Card or Remedy for the Wind-Breaking of the Southwest and the Departure of the Cartouche
A Monument Dedicated to Posterity in Commemoration of Ye Incredible Folly Transacted in the Year 1720
Bernard Baron (French, 1696–1762)
after Bernard Picart (French, 1673–1733)
1721
Hand-colored etching and engraving
This beautifully colored print evokes speculation mania on Exchange Alley, London’s principal banking street. Modifying an image by the Amsterdam-based artist Bernard Picart, also on view in this exhibition, Bernard Baron adapted Picart’s Dutch references for an English audience. Part reportage, part allegory, the print portrays hordes of investors engaging in acts of intrigue, theft, and violence. The goddess Fortuna, whose wheel is shown trampling over an honest merchant, doles out both stock shares and afflictions; the words “sorrow,” “madness,” and “prison” appear in the air around her. Some of the figures hauling a cart that contains Folly (distinguished by her fool’s cap) have Indigenous and East Asian appearances: personifications of far-flung colonial ventures. Overhead, beside a bubble-blowing devil, the goddess Fame trumpets fake news of easy money.
: 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. This item may not be in the public domain under the laws of other countries.
