Jewish Ball - Antisemitic Poster - Monsters Exhibition

Jewish Ball - Antisemitic Poster - Monsters Exhibition

Boule de Juif - Jewish ball. Poster No. 1 from the Musée des Horreurs series ["Monsters Exhibition" / "Museum of Horrors"]. Paris, [1899-1900]. A hand-painted lithographic print depicting the Jew Joseph Reinach (a French journalist and politician from Dreyfus' great supporters from the early stages of the trial) as a monkey holding a letter in his hand demanding revenge on a scoundrel made by D. "D" is a reference to one of the documents submitted by the prosecution in the Dreyfus case. Published: October 1, 1899. Signed in the plate by V. Lenepveu. French.

The series "Monsters Exhibition" was published during the Dreyfus affair under a pseudonym, and included 51 large posters with anti-Dreyfus illustrations, antisemitic, and against the "Bonim". The series was published in France over a period of about a year, between October 1899 and December 1900. The original plan was to issue 200 Posters in the series, but in fact only 51 came out. The first posters in the series sold over 300,000 copies. In October 1899 the French police arrested a number of peddlers who sold posters from the series on the orders of District Commander Louis Lapin. According to some reports, Lapin ordered the distribution of posters to be stopped following a request he received from Baron de Rothschild, who claimed that the damage in distributing them was irreversible. In February 1900 the local police sent letters in which they threatened to revoke the trade license from Merchants who would sell the posters, and since then their distribution has stopped.

65X50 cm. Slight tears in margins. Missing tear at bottom left without damaging text. Good condition.