WILLIAM HOGARTH (1697-1764)
The South Sea Scheme
1721RCIN 811308
This print offers a hellish vision of London after the collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720. Large numbers had invested in the Company and many were ruined by its bankruptcy. To the left is the monument to the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666. The inscription on its base has been changed to describe a city ‘destroyed by the South Sea in 1720’.
Purchased by Queen Victoria in 1845
Cat. 75