Allegory on the Defeat of the Duke of Alva at Brielle
1580
Artist unknown Northern or Southern Netherlands, late 16th century
Flanders
Political broadsheets invoked news and religious polemics. This satirical engraving represents the April 1, 1572, dispatching of the ferocious Duke of Alva and his troops from Brielle, a small Dutch village—a major turning point in the Netherlands’s conflict with Spain. The Dutch and German word for glasses (Brille) is phonetically close to the town’s name. The bespectacled geese represent its saviors, a group of Calvinist Dutch nobles who used guerrilla tactics. They burn a monstrance, chalice, and crucifix on the left, and rout the foxes—often associated with the evils of the Catholic Church during the Reformation—in the background.
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper