Allegory on the Defeat of the Duke of Alva at Brielle

Prints and Drawings

1580

Artist unknown
Northern or Southern Netherlands, late 16th century

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.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Unknown artist
Title: Allegory on the Defeat of the Duke of Alva at Brielle
Place: Flanders (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1580
Medium: Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions: Plate: 18 × 27.7 cm (7 1/8 × 10 15/16 in.); Sheet: 19.6 × 29.3 cm (7 3/4 × 11 9/16 in.)
Credit Line: William McCallin McKee Memorial Endowment
Reference Number: 1944.584
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/51395/manifest.json

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Allegory on the Defeat of the Duke of Alva at Brielle

Currently Off View

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.