Pasquin’s Wind Cards of the Wind Trade in the Year 1720

Anonymous, 1720, Etching and engraving

This uncut deck of cards invites the possibility of clipping the individual cards and playing with them. Featuring figures who have lost their fortunes or have committed themselves to foolish pastimes, the print communicates the idea that stock trading amounts to nothing more than a high-risk match. Windhandel, literally trading in wind, is the Dutch term for buying and selling stock shares, evoking ideas of emptiness and airiness, perhaps because no actual goods are exchanged. The cards not only make fun of the men and women who participate in this windy business; they also offer the viewer-player the chance to experience the risks of gambling and to thereby become, like those who lost everything in the bubble, subjects of derision themselves. The title’s reference to Pasquin is to a battered Hellenistic sculpture on which Romans would post critical commentary. It underscores the print’s intention to satirize the bubble and its participants.