Dan Onder Dan Booven (Now Under, Now Over)

This Dutch etching depicts figures clinging to a large wheel—a metaphor for Fortune's wheel and political instability. Numbered characters (likely representing political actors or social classes) occupy different positions as the wheel rotates, suggesting the reversals and upheavals of power during the American Revolutionary era. The composition follows the Northern European tradition of political satire established by artists like Hogarth and developed through broadsheet prints and almanac illustrations. The wheel's relentless motion visualizes anxieties about social mobility and revolutionary change. Such engravings circulated widely among literate audiences, combining visual wit with numbered explanations—a format that prefigured the sequential, captioned narratives of modern comics while remaining rooted in the tradition of moral and political commentary through allegorical imagery.