Life of Saint Nicholas

Made up of 12 scenes, this print shows the life of St Nicholas both as a bishop who helped children and the poor and as a friend to children who each year brought them treats or, if they had been naughty, the rod. One scene is about ‘Sinte Nicolaes’, patron saint of the city of Amsterdam. The texts on the print, in Dutch and French, rhyme. The drawings are coarsely coloured in red, yellow and blue. In the section on St Nicholas as a friend to children, no 'black assistant' is included, in contrast to 20th-century representations of St Nicholas, which often feature ‘Zwarte Piet’ (Black Pete).
This print is a centsprent (penny print). These cheap mass prints were sold to the lower classes and to children in the 18th and 19th centuries.