Spotprent op de Vrede van Utrecht

This Dutch satirical engraving mocks the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which ended the War of Spanish Succession. The composition stages competing national interests as a crowded theatrical scene: figures representing various European powers jostle around a central monument while allegorical characters gesture from above. The engraver employs dense cross-hatching and layered perspective typical of 17th-century Northern European printmaking. Accompanying verses in Dutch and French amplify the visual satire. Such political prints descended from Renaissance broadsheets and anticipated the graphic satire tradition of Hogarth and Gillray. The work employs national stereotypes and class markers as visual shorthand for readers to identify competing interests in treaty negotiations.