Carol I Tends Ferdinand: Regele Bulgariei (King of Bulgaria)

This ink drawing for the cover of *Furnica* magazine depicts Bulgaria as a gravely ill patient in bed, attended by two physicians. One doctor bears the features of Ferdinand, the Bulgarian heir prince, holding his nose against the stench. The other, rendered as Romanian King Carol I in general's uniform, provides care. Behind them lurks a gravedigger bearing the visage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, carrying a coffin labeled "we want the war to continue"—a commentary on foreign powers' entanglement in the Balkan Wars. The cartoon exemplifies the political caricature tradition descending from 18th-century satirists, using bodily grotesquerie and allegorical sickbeds to anatomize international intrigue.