From the exhibition
Memorial Print on the Departure of the Duke of Brunswick from the Netherlands
· 1784

This Dutch engraving commemorates the Duke of Brunswick's exit from the Netherlands during a politically turbulent period. The print depicts military and civic figures gathered around a tall monument or obelisk, with cherubs descending from clouds above—a classical composition typical of 18th-century political prints. The accompanying verse in Dutch frames the event within nationalist discourse. Executed in fine engraving technique, the print belongs to the northern European tradition of satirical and commemorative engravings that preceded modern comics. Such prints circulated as portable political commentary, mixing allegory, portraiture, and text to shape public opinion—a precedent for how sequential image-and-text would later structure narrative in popular print culture.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/