Satire on the Voluntary 3% Loan Campaign of 1844

This Dutch wood engraving mocks a government fundraising campaign, using exaggerated figures and absurd scenes to ridicule both officials promoting the voluntary loan and citizens responding to it. Articles 8–12 pair satirical text with crude caricatures: a skeletal money-lender, a beggar, affluent men coercing the poor, and a woman clutching an empty purse. The print descends from Hogarth's narrative sequences and German Bilderbogen—combining visual satire with numbered commentary to expose financial exploitation. Political caricature here serves as popular protest, distributed as cheap broadsheet satire.