The Armed Citizen (De Gewapende Kees)

This etching depicts an anthropomorphized fox standing upright in military dress, shouldering a musket—a figure known as 'Kees,' the symbolic common man of Amsterdam. The accompanying Dutch verse satirizes the Patriot movement's mobilization of civilian militias during the 1787 political crisis, when bourgeois and working-class Amsterdammers armed themselves against the Orangist establishment. The print exemplifies the tradition of topical political satire inherited from 18th-century printmakers like Hogarth and Gillray: a single emblematic figure, crude woodcut or etching technique, and biting verse combine to mock contemporary events for a literate urban audience. Animal caricature—here the fox as scheming commoner—carries class contempt typical of the era's satirical prints, which used such figures to ridicule popular political participation.