Mishandeling van het lijk van predikant P. van den Bosch te Zoetermeer, 1787 1798

Reinier Vinkeles rendered this engraving in 1787, depicting the desecration of Reverend P. van den Bosch’s corpse in Zoetermeer. Here, the central motif is the desecration itself—a stark defiance of religious and social norms. The act of mistreating a corpse is an ancient taboo, a violation that transcends cultures. Consider, for instance, the symbolic act of raising a weapon against the deceased. This gesture, though rooted in immediate historical events, echoes through time. We see similar acts in ancient rituals, where defiling an enemy’s body was meant to deny them peace in the afterlife, or erase their memory. The emotional impact of this image lies in its raw depiction of human cruelty. It taps into our collective fear of death and the violation of sacred boundaries. These symbols speak to the cyclical nature of human behavior—a grim reminder of how barbarity can resurface in the most unexpected times and places.