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From the exhibition

Opden Professora ale Krygsman [The Professor-at-Arms]

· 1785

Opden Professora ale Krygsman [The Professor-at-Arms]
This Dutch engraving mocks a patriot preacher through military caricature. A figure in tricorn hat and officer's coat stands holding a rifle, dressed in the uniform of the Patriot militia movement that challenged royal authority in the Dutch Republic. The composition—with military insignia, weapons, and landscape background—follows the Northern European satirical print tradition established by Hogarth and developed through the 18th century. The accompanying verse in Dutch ridicules the subject's pretensions to martial authority. This wood engraving exemplifies how political satire employed visual exaggeration and costume ridicule to attack both individual opponents and ideological movements, a tradition that would evolve into the sequential narrative strategies of later comics and caricature sheets.

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