Sympathy: 'If I find you again looking so sad, I'll send you to Germany after your father.'
Louis Raemaekers (Roermond 1869 – Netherlands 1956)
Category
Art / Prints
Date
6 Dec 1916
Materials
Paper
Measurements
33 x 26 cm
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 206317.13
Caption
In this cartoon by the Dutch artist Louis Raemakers, a giant Prussian officer looks down on an impoverished Belgian child, threatening him with deportation to Germany. At the time this image was made, the memory of nurse Edith Cavell’s execution in Brussels at the hands of German firing squad was still fresh in people’s minds and had been the subject of one of Raemaekers’ most powerful images. During the war, children were used for propaganda in a variety of ways, often as ‘innocents’ or ‘heros’. The experience of Belgian children, however, was one of deprivation, separation from their parents, and above all, of hunger. Those who escaped as refugees to Britain fared better – enormous public sympathy and goodwill towards them, partly as a result of Raemaekers’ cartoons, meant that their lives could continue with some degree of normality. Raemaekers' cartoons were among the most important propaganda for the Allies during the First World War. A vociferous critic of Germany’s invasion of Belgium, Raemaekers' work was confiscated on several occasions by the Dutch government. They accused him of endangering the country’s neutrality, something Raemaekers vehemently opposed. With rumours of a German reward for his capture, Raemaekers fled to London in 1915, where he achieved instant fame. During the course of the war, his cartoons were printed in newspapers and on postcards and were exhibited across the world, reaching an audience of millions. He was awarded the French Legion of Honour and was even credited for influencing America’s decision to enter the conflict. When peace resumed, Raemaekers settled in Brussels, becoming an advocate of the League of Nations and devoting many of his sketches and articles to the cause of a united Europe.
Summary
Print, Sympathy: 'If I find you again looking so sad, I'll send you to Germany after your father' by Louis Raemaekers (Roermond 1869 – Netherlands 1956). 1 of 32 coloured prints by Louis Raemaekers, large Prussian officer on right looking down on young lad with no shoes, on stiff paper, unmounted, numbered in pencil bottom right corner: 17
Makers and roles
Louis Raemaekers (Roermond 1869 – Netherlands 1956)