The New Colonial Opposition

This wood engraving presents four figures labeled as colonial political opponents, each rendered with exaggerated features typical of nineteenth-century satirical prints. The composition follows the tradition of character types—from costume farce to political commentary—established by Hogarth and refined through Gillray and Daumier. The print belongs to the Bilderbogen picture-sheet tradition that gave visual form to political debate through recognizable types and physiognomy. Below stand four quoted speeches in Dutch, each representing a distinct political position on colonial affairs. The work channels European popular satire's reliance on bodily caricature and costume to ridicule opponents, a mode that would persist through nineteenth-century journalism into early comic illustration.