John Law on Sancho Panza's Donkey

This Dutch engraving mocks the financial collapse of John Law's Mississippi Company scheme. Law, depicted as a fool astride Cervantes's donkey, is paraded before a jeering crowd while his fortunes literally crumble beneath him. The print combines Cervantes's figure of absurdity with contemporary economic disaster—Law's bubble burst in 1720, ruining thousands of investors across Europe. The image exemplifies the Northern European print satire tradition: densely packed crowds, emblematic animals, moral chaos rendered in fine engraved lines. Such broadsheets circulated widely, translating financial and political scandal into popular entertainment. This ancestry—combining visual wit, social commentary, and printmaking accessibility—flows directly into eighteenth-century caricature and eventually the modern comic form.