The Dutch Virgin and Mount Merapi

This 1930 political cartoon by Johan Braakensiek uses the image of an erupting Mount Merapi to symbolize unrest in the Dutch East Indies. The “Dutch Virgin,” a recurring allegorical figure representing the Netherlands, stands before the erupting volcano—suggesting the looming threat of colonial instability beneath a façade of order. Braakensiek’s work captures how natural disaster imagery was often used as metaphor for political and social upheaval during the late colonial period.