This cartoon by Dave Brown from The Independent is based on a painting by English landscape artist John Sell Cotman called 'The Wreck of the Houghton Hall' (see original here).
Dave Brown's version, entitled 'On The Rocks', is a metaphor for the eurozone debt crisis. If you describe something such as a marriage or business as being on the rocks, you mean that it is experiencing very severe difficulties and looks likely to end very soon. The ship, whose figurehead bears the likeness of Angela Merkel, can be viewed as representing the euro, or the eurozone, which has been wrecked by the stormy seas (the markets). On the beach we can see two victims of the wreck: former Greek PM George Papandreou and soon-to-be-former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi.
ALSO SEE
• Eurozone ship is on the course that was set for it: heading for the rocks (The Telegraph)
• Euro on the rocks? (BBC 'In Business' programme)
MORE CARTOONS
• Martin Rowson cartoon (The Guardian)
• Bob cartoon (The Telegraph)
POSTSCRIPT
Jochen (from Germany) sent me this comment via email.
I'd rather say it (the ship with the Angela Merkel figurehead) represents Germany, which is still "out there" on the stormy (euro) sea, whereas the Greek and Italian ship has already sunk (cf. the wooden remains).
I totally agree. That makes much more sense.
