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From the exhibition

Dikke monnik met de sleutels van hemel en aarde (Fat Monk with the Keys of Heaven and Earth)

· 1724

Dikke monnik met de sleutels van hemel en aarde (Fat Monk with the Keys of Heaven and Earth)
This etched print ridicules Catholic clergy through exaggerated physical caricature—a rotund monk clutching the symbolic keys of papal authority. The bloated figure, rendered in sharp linear hatching typical of early 18th-century Dutch printmaking, embodies Protestant satirical attacks on priestly corruption and greed. The work belongs to a long tradition of religious polemic through caricature, descending from Reformation-era broadsheets and anticipating the more sophisticated social satire of Hogarth and Gillray. Body-based mockery served as a standard vehicle for theological critique in popular prints, allowing viewers to register doctrinal objections through visual ridicule of the clergy's material excess.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/