A series of works that take the character “Lady Credit” as a departure point. When thinking of the stock market nowadays, perhaps men in suits and wildly gesticulating men shouting on exchange floors spring to mind. But around 1700 - the moment when the financial sector really began to take hold of society and the world at large - finance was not perceived as masculine, but rather as feminine.
Credit came to be represented by images of women and goddesses, frequently of loose sexual morals. One example is Lady Credit. As she sits on her throne in the Bank of England, potential suitors vie for her attention. The qualities of a man dependent on credit mirrored those of a “Fine lady”; both relied on reputation , assets and potential for future gain. Although sexualized representations of credit seem specific to eighteenth-century discourse, these works contend that they are still at the heart of how we understand debt and credit today.