Groote Gelegenheids-Voorstelling (Grand Occasion Performance)

This Dutch wood engraving satirizes political and social figures around a billiards table labeled with the 'Afrikaansch-Hall' system of 1879. The central scene depicts scheming politicians and society members engaged in a parlor game, while surrounding panels show related scenes of corruption, revelry, and colonial dealings. Printed in the tradition of European political satire sheets—descended from Gillray and Rowlandson—this broadside combines multiple narrative vignettes in the manner of German Bilderbogen. The dense, moralizing composition targets Dutch establishment hypocrisy through caricature and physical grotesquerie. Such sheets were mass-produced satirical newspapers, ancestors to the comic strip, using popular entertainment and exaggeration to critique power.