From the exhibition
Spotprent op de Engelse verliezen in de strijd met Amerika
· 1778

This Dutch etching depicts British military defeats during the American Revolution. The scene shows figures in 18th-century dress gathered on a shore before Philadelphia's skyline and anchored ships, their body language and gestures conveying humiliation and discord. A large dog lounges in the foreground, indifferent to the chaos of European politics. The print belongs to a rich tradition of political satire inherited from Hogarth and refined by contemporaries like Gillray and Rowlandson—visual commentary distributed as single sheets for popular consumption. Such prints used exaggerated physical features and posed figures to ridicule public figures and national rivalries. This example reflects the Dutch perspective on British struggles in America, using caricature and symbolic animals to communicate partisan messages about European power and American independence to a literate, politically engaged audience.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/