De Bubbeljongen op jacht (The Bubble Boy Hunting)

This Dutch engraved broadsheet belongs to the tradition of political-allegorical prints that flourished in the late seventeenth century. The ornate coat of arms frames narrative scenes in multiple registers, a format descended from German and Flemish picture-sheets (Bilderbogen). The text and images together satirize financial speculation and market folly through stock characters and emblematic action—a mode perfected by Hogarth and later revived by Gillray and Daumier. The composition shows the influence of emblem-book printing, where moral or political instruction merged with visual wit. Such sheets circulated widely among literate urban audiences, establishing conventions of sequential narrative and character-driven humor that would eventually inform the comic strip tradition.