ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the representation of Louis XIV in the work of Romeyn de Hooghe. The most prolific and the most versatile graphic artist of the late seventeenth century, de Hooghe was also the most incisive and the wittiest critic of Louis XIV. In 1672, he emerged as the inexhaustible producer of broadsheets and illustrations glorifying Stadtholder William III. De Hooghe's respectful attitude was to change in 1688. In the context of William III's British expedition, a Glorious Revolution, and the beginning of the Nine Years' War, he produced a group of nine satirical prints that ridiculed Louis in an unprecedented way. The chapter makes sense of them when placing them in the full context of contemporary political affairs, as well as the cultural, artistic, and literary conventions of the period. The Harlequin prints can be read as a sustained attempt to gain and retain support for William's invasion of England.
