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From the exhibition

Lied bij de spotprent op de Landzaten (Song for the Satire on the Peasants)

· 1795

Lied bij de spotprent op de Landzaten (Song for the Satire on the Peasants)
This Dutch broadside combines verse with political satire during the revolutionary upheaval of the 1790s. The song mocks rural subjects (Landzaten) through exaggerated dialect and comic repetition—'koop! koop!' and 'zo malsch! zo malsch!'—targeting their presumed stupidity and rustic manners. Such printed songs accompanied satirical images in the Bilderbogen tradition, making political commentary accessible through folk humor and vernacular language. The format descends from sixteenth-century broadside ballads and prefigures the sequential visual-verbal narratives of later comic prints. By ridiculing common people rather than elites, this piece reflects how satire could reinforce class hierarchies even amid democratic rhetoric.

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