Frogs and Cheese Heads | Dutch Edition

What typifies the Dutch? We ourselves quickly arrive at qualities such as tolerant, straightforward and enterprising. But it is highly questionable whether that corresponds with the image that others have of us. Do they also see the Dutch in this way, do they perhaps find certain habits characteristic of us, or our appearance?

In Frogs and cheese heads we are confronted with foreign images in which the Dutch are criticized and ridiculed. They roughly cover the period from 1600 to 1850. We are portrayed as frogs, cheeseheads, pipe smokers, drunkards, lazy cowards, unscrupulous opportunists, ill-mannered red-haired barbarians and over-eaten idlers. All stereotypes, of course, that do touch on a factual feeling or idea about the Netherlands and the Dutch. That is why the context in which the performances originated is also discussed.

Most of the images in this book come from the Rijksmuseum's exceptionally diverse collection of cartoons, which have remained virtually unknown until now. With over one hundred and thirty examples mainly from England and France, but also Germany, Belgium, the United States and Japan, this fantastic collection is now receiving full attention for the first time.

Frogs and Cheese Heads offers a surprising look at the Dutch through the ages. Do we recognize ourselves in the distorting mirror that foreign