This Dutch wood engraving mobilizes voters against a political alliance between Catholic and Calvinist parties. Two caricatured figures—a gaunt Protestant minister and a portly Catholic priest—clasp hands in sinister complicity, their exaggerated facial features and body types embodying period prejudices against both confessions. The text warns that Calvin and Rome together threaten the Fatherland, invoking God's protection.
The print descends from Northern European satirical traditions: sharp social commentary rendered through physiognomic distortion and symbolic gesture. Like 19th-century German Bilderbogen and political cartoons by Nast and Daumier, it weaponizes caricature to sway public opinion, conflating religious difference with civic danger. The wood-engraved line style, economical yet expressive, made such prints cheap and widely distributed—early mass media for partisan argument.
About this artifact
- Date
- 1916
- Rights
- Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
- Restoration
- Digitally restored and hosted by ComicBooks.com.
Part of our mission to preserve and restore the public-domain heritage of the medium.