Het Politicq Secreet; of Nieuwerwetse Rarekiek (The Political Secret; or New-Fangled Peep Show)

This Dutch copper engraving depicts six figures in tricorn hats seated on chamber pots, a scatological attack on Rotterdam's Patriot faction during the Dutch political crisis of the 1780s. The work employs bodily humor—a mainstay of Netherlandish and Northern European print satire—to demean political opponents by reducing them to their basest functions. The narrow vertical frames suggest a peep-show toy, mocking the Patriot movement as cheap entertainment. This print exemplifies how political caricature used grotesquerie and bodily ridicule to delegitimize rivals. The tradition of scatological satire, refined by Hogarth and perfected by Gillray, established visual languages later inherited by newspaper comics and early comic strips, where exaggeration and bodily humor remained central to political commentary.