De slapende Boer van Stolwijk (The Sleeping Farmer of Stolwijk)

This Dutch engraving depicts a sleeping farmer in bed, attended by figures emerging from darkness—a satirical scene mocking rural credulity and superstition. The accompanying verses in Dutch mock the farmer's vulnerability to supernatural deception. Printed in the tradition of Northern European popular prints, this work belongs to the lineage of didactic comic imagery that would evolve into graphic satire. The composition—ornamental frame, moral caption, allegorical figures—echoes the Bilderbogen picture-sheets and anticipates the sequential narrative strategies of later caricaturists like Hogarth and Gillray. Such prints circulated widely, instructing and entertaining viewers through exaggerated rural types, establishing visual conventions that modern comics inherit: caricature, social commentary, and narrative clarity through image and text.