Symbolic and historical imagery crowds this depiction of winged Time laying Truth bare before a Dutch ambassador. Engraved above Time’s hourglass is a motto: I consume all things and sett foort[h] the Truth. Though personified as a woman, Truth represents the ghost of Isaac Dorislaus (1595–1649), a Dutch academic at Cambridge who had played a role in the prosecution of Charles I (1600–1649). Shortly after the king’s execution, Dorislaus was killed by royalists while visiting his homeland. His murder became a lightning rod for royalists and republicans alike and continued to be invoked, as here, in propaganda for the Anglo-Dutch War. That Time would implacably reveal the Truth was an ambiguous message: most copies of this engraving were issued with competing interpretations in English and Dutch.
Unrecorded artist, Dr. Dorislaw’s Ghost, Presented by Time to Unmask the Vizards of the Hollanders; and Discover the Lions Paw in the Face of the Sun, in this Juncture of Time……, [London], [printed by R.I. for T. Hinde, and N. Brooke], [1652]. Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987. PML 145850.25.