The New Journalists of the Residency

This Dutch wood engraving satirizes the launch of two new newspapers in The Hague: the Dagblad van Zuid Holland and 's-Gravenhage. A showman atop a barrel addresses a crowd, gesturing toward a banner advertising the papers as a spectacle—"model Nieuwe Rotterdammer"—while hawking them like carnival attractions. The composition descends from Hogarth and Gillray's tradition of print satire, mocking public gullibility and the commercial sensationalism of mid-century journalism. The print reflects anxieties about mass media's rise and the blurring of news and entertainment that comic prints themselves embodied.