Baron (Bernard)

London, Carington Bowles, c.1765.
a scarce satire on the wild, and financially perilous, speculative investments of the late 17th and early 18th century, notably the South Sea Bubble and, represented here, the Mississippi Bubble. The composition is a reversed version of one by Bernard Picart, and was first published in 1720 by John Bowles. This equally rare example was issued by his nephew, Carington Bowles, who took over the business in the early 1760s. The central element is an excited crowd surrounding the nude female figure of Fortune, distributing shares from the back of a cart driven by the figure of Folly, seated in a large hooped skirt, and drawn by allegorical figures from the various trading companies of the era, Mississippi, South Sea, East India, West India, and the Bank of England. Floating above the scene the Devil sits on the black side of a cloud, blowing bubbles from a clay pipe, while shafts of light radiate from the adjacent white side, named Extream Joy, Madness, Prison and Beggary. In the background on the left is the entrance to Jonathan’s, the coffee house where early dealing took place, and on the right the grand porticos to the three of Fools, Beggars, and in between, Bethlehem, the hospital that lent its name to the term ‘Bedlam’ that came to represent the insanity of its patients..
245 by 340mm (9¾ by 13½ inches).