TROMPE L'OEIL - [Trompe l'oeil aux assignats].... - Lot 8 - Eric Caudron

TROMPE L'OEIL - [Trompe l'oeil aux assignats]. TABLE DES PAPIERS-MONNAYES, créés depuis la Révolution, avec leurs Variations par chaque Mois, Calculées sur le change de Bâle avec la France". Early 19th century. Etching, printed in black and red chalk. Proof on laid paper. 33 x 44,5 cm. Condition A (filleted margins for three sides and cut inside the copper mark at the foot (the address of Remoissenet Md d'estampes missing), otherwise fine condition). The assignat was a paper money that existed during the French Revolution from 1790 to 1796. Initially conceived as an interest-bearing loan instrument reserved for the purchase of national property, the assignat quickly became a non-interest-bearing bill that could be used for all purchases. Large quantities were printed, not counting those smuggled in by the enemies of the Revolution. In a few years, Paris became a broken city. The city that had made the rest of Europe fantasize about its economic and cultural wealth was transformed into a huge cesspool where anarchy and misery reigned. The value of these assignats decreases considerably compared to the value of metallic money, which becomes rare. The assignats boards are burned in public on the Place Vendôme, on February 19, 1796 but the gigantic bonfire does not prevent the Directory from going bankrupt. During the following months, numerous trompe l'oeil prints of old crumbled assignats began to circulate in Paris. This group composition of scattered bills as if they had been thrown away in a gesture of despair testifies to the uselessness of the assignats during this period of crisis.