This Dutch etching depicts the fall of James II and his flight to France during the Glorious Revolution. A crowded scene shows soldiers, clergy, and courtiers in violent disorder beneath a sun emblem. The engraved composition—dense with allegorical figures and Latin inscriptions—represents political upheaval as moral chaos. The print exemplifies the Northern European tradition of satirical engravings that preceded 18th-century English caricature. Such sheets circulated widely as partisan propaganda, combining religious imagery, social grotesquerie, and legible inscriptions to reach a broad, semi-literate audience. This visual mode—mixing text, caricature, and sequential narrative—established conventions that would evolve into modern sequential art and the comic strip.
About this artifact
- Date
- 1689
- Rights
- Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
- Restoration
- Digitally restored and hosted by ComicBooks.com · high-resolution version available.
Part of our mission to preserve and restore the public-domain heritage of the medium.