Proclamation of the Treaty of Münster

The first half of the 17th century in Europe was a period of near continuous warfare. Due in part to religious upheavals, these wars extended across the continent and overlapped various regions simultaneously. One of the most significant outcomes of the declaration of peace in 1648 was the establishment of the Protestant Dutch Republic as a sovereign entity, separated from the Catholic Spanish rule against which it had revolted. Hollar, a Bohemian etcher of topographical views who worked in Germany, Flanders, and England, was living in Antwerp at the time. His view of the Grote Markt and Antwerp town hall, where the proclamation was announced, shows the city’s population filling the square and leaning out of the windows of surrounding buildings. Such an image would have been circulated as a means of chronicling the historical event.