AMERICAN PINBACK BUTTON BADGE FEATURING ALFRED DREYFUS & EMILE ZOLA
7/8” real photo button without dot pattern ...

7/8” real photo button without dot pattern pictures both men in sepia with their names above. Reverse has brass collet and fixed horizontal pin with backpaper (couple of letters are covered by the collet) reading “MANDEL KERN/Photographer, Now At/196 E. Broadway/Button Made By/B. Harris, (?) 52 Bowery.” Very minor surface wear in reflected light, otherwise, in mint condition.


c. 1899.


Seemingly, a unique surviving example.
     Provenance: The Hake Collection (see www.hakes.com/Auction/ItemDetail/54905).
     Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jewish artillery officer whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason turned into one of the most tense political dramas in modern French history with a wide echo throughout Europe. Known today as the Dreyfus Affair, the incident eventually ended with Dreyfus`s complete exoneration.