John Law as the Don Quixote of Finance

This wood engraving satirizes John Law, the Scottish financier whose Mississippi Scheme (1720) triggered one of history's first major financial bubbles. The artist depicts Law as a delusional Don Quixote, mounted on a beast labeled with financial instruments, surrounded by demons and grotesque figures representing speculation and fraud. Cherubs with flaming torches mock his schemes while credulous investors and victims crowd below. The print belongs to a robust tradition of political and economic satire stretching from Hogarth through Gillray and Rowlandson—visual propaganda that preceded modern comics. This particular engraving reflects 19th-century moralism about financial excess, using exaggerated physiognomy and demonic imagery typical of the era's class-based ridicule of both schemers and the desperate poor they exploited.