De partijen vechten om Castilië

This Dutch engraving depicts the War of Spanish Succession through the allegorical figure of Castile as a fortified tower fought over by European powers. The tower's occupants—representing competing claimants and their supporters—are shown in period dress with weapons and regalia, while ships and military forces surround the fortress. The composition employs the visual satire tradition established by Northern European printmakers: symbolic architecture, ranked figures with exaggerated features, and extensive explanatory verses below. The print exemplifies how seventeenth-century political caricature used buildings, bodies, and symbolic imagery to comment on dynastic conflict. Dense text and allegorical imagery characterize this era's graphic polemics, precursors to the sequential narrative and visual wit of later comic tradition.