Afbeeldinge van de Grote Visch van Holland

This Dutch satirical print depicts a massive fish—an allegorical figure of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the executed statesman—being hauled ashore by soldiers and magistrates. The engraving combines political attack with popular emblem tradition: Oldenbarnevelt's corpulence and the grotesque fish-form ridicule his greed and corruption. Soldiers, crowds, and city walls fill the background in meticulous detail. Text panels frame the image with explanatory verses in Dutch.

This work exemplifies the Northern European broadsheet tradition inherited from 16th-century picture-sheets. Like Hogarth and Gillray after him, the artist weaponizes exaggeration and visual pun to savage a political enemy. The print circulated widely among the literate public, making satirical engraving a tool of propaganda. Such sheets—blending narrative scene, caricature, and moral commentary—established visual language later adopted by newspaper comics and comic books.