Veritable Portrait du tres fameux Seigneur messire Quinquempoix

This French engraving ridicules the speculative frenzy of the Mississippi Company scheme. A grotesque central figure—bloated, serpent-headed, bearing symbols of wealth and fraud—dominates a crowded scene of investors and devils. Text panels left and right narrate the satire in verse, naming specific financial instruments (stocks, bonds, banknotes) and mocking victims across all classes.

The print descends from Northern European broadsheet traditions and anticipates Hogarth's moral narratives through dense allegorical imagery and accompanying text. Its method—engraved line work, crowded composition, monstrous caricature—became standard for 18th-century political satire. The cartoon participated in public rage over the 1720 financial collapse, using grotesque physiognomy and comic exaggeration that later print culture would adapt.