Caricatures are extremely well suited to staging a critical confrontation with repression and the banning of unwanted publications. Censors and their edicts are put on view in exaggerated and distorted images drawn with a sharp pen. And how is the censor portrayed? Happily holding scissors in his hand, always ready to cut out whatever is unwanted.

A good caricaturist is capable of laying bare censorship’s inherent contradictions in a particularly effective way and making them transparent for a wide audience. The struggle for press freedom being fought in many European countries at this time in the 19th century led to a high point in political and socially critical caricature.