Romeyn de Hooghe and the Birth of Political Satire

This dissertation is a study of the political satires of Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708), complex and politically engaged works that transformed the political print in the Netherlands. Printed political images had existed for over one hundred and fifty years before the appearance of de Hooghe's satires and a range of visual and ideological strategies had evolved since their inception, among them the format of the fable, animal symbolism, and the devices of formal portraiture. While de Hooghe built upon the foundation of these earlier traditions, little prepares the viewer (both seventeenth-century and modern) for his radical departures that revolve largely around the deconstruction of the royal body. This study consists of an intensive examination of his satires on both domestic and foreign subjects, their cultural and visual references and the impact of their emergence both on the role of the printmaker and in the wider context of political imagery at the turn of the eighteenth century.