In Anarchy the artist depicts the disastrous failure of government as a naked female figure who raves over the ruins of the civilization she has destroyed. She holds an incendiary torch formed from the scroll of learning. Serpents twist in her hair, and she tramples upon a scroll, a lyre, a Bible, and a book, the symbols, respectively, of Learning, Art, Religion, and Law. At her feet, under the broken arch of a building is a bomb with a lighted fuse, another tool of destruction. On the right a figure of Violence gazes upon the cup of madness held by Anarchy while he pries out the cornerstone of a great building, causing it to collapse, representing the destruction of the fabric of civilization. On the left, a female figure of Ignorance uses a surveyor’s staff to force the wreckage of civilization into a chasm.  The broken millwheel and millstone in an uncultivated field represent the failure of industry and agriculture.