Wisselkantoor van Lodewijk XIV (Exchange Office of Louis XIV)

This Dutch etching mocks Louis XIV's financial collapse during the War of Spanish Succession. Two grotesque figures—a skeletal money-changer and a corpulent fool—preside over worthless currency marked with the king's profile. The print employs exaggerated physiognomy and physical caricature typical of early 18th-century political satire, where bodily deformity signified moral and political corruption. Dense text surrounds the central image in the tradition of Northern European broadsheets, combining visual mockery with detailed commentary. Such prints descended from Hogarth's moralizing narratives and anticipated the cutting political caricature of Gillray and Rowlandson, establishing visual satire as a weapon against authority—a lineage that would eventually feed into modern editorial cartooning and sequential art.