Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Antiquities, Ceremonial Objects & Graphic Art
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LOT 39:

(DREYFUS AFFAIR)
Group of eight original drawings for the ...

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Sold for: $15,000
Estimated price:
$ 15,000 - $20,000
Auction house commission: 25%
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Group of eight original drawings for the anti-Semitic and anti-Dreyfusard series of posters: Le Musée des Horreurs” executed by V. Lenepveu.
One watercolor and brush and ink over pencil on paper; one colored crayon and graphite on paper; six watercolor and brush and ink on paper. Sizes range from 10 x 8 inches - 13.5 x 10 inches (25 x 20.3 cm - 34.3 x 25 cm). Each matted. Some staining.

(Paris, 1899)

“L’Affaire” as it became known, engaged the consciousness of the entire French nation and indeed much of Europe, for over a decade from 1894, when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army was unjustly accused of treason, until he was finally and fully rehabilitated in 1906.
     French society became deeply divided over the Dreyfus case and hostile rhetoric led to widespread anti-Semitic expression in the popular press. The Musée des Horreurs series of political posters defaming prominent Jews and Dreyfusards, depicting their faces attached to grotesque animal bodies, is the most dramatic example. These vicious posters appeared weekly in Paris beginning in the Fall of 1899, until stopped by order of the French Ministry of the Interior about a year later.
     The eight original caricatures are:
     
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Emile Zola (Le Roi des Porcs). Drawing for poster no. 4.
     
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Defense attorney for both Zola and Dreyfus, Fernand Labori (Trou de balle). Drawing for poster no. 5.
     
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Alfred Dreyfus (Le Traitor). Drawing for poster no. 6.
     
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The journalist Jean Jaures (L’elephant du Jourdain). Drawing for poster no. 14.
     
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President of France Emile Loubet, Chief Rabbi Zadoc Kahn, Lt. Colonel George Picquart (the officer who exposed the affair), Joseph Reinach, Emile Zola and Alfred Dreyfus (Un bal a l’Elysee). Drawing for poster no. 26.
     
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Yves Guyot, Former Minister of Public Works and Chief Editor of the Dreyfusard newspaper Le Siecle (Porte ca a Dreyfus). Drawing for poster no. 29.
     
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The politician Joseph Reinach (Que le chambardement commence). Drawing for poster no. 34.
     
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Nathan Mayer Rothschild of London (Nathan Mayer ou l’origine des millards). Drawing for poster no. 42.
     See N.L. Kleeblatt, The Dreyfus Affair: Art Truth & Justice (1987) pp. 242-52 (illustrated) and Bertrand Tillier, Les Artistes et l’Affaire Dreyfus (2009).
     
Provenance:
Sotheby’s New York, Judaica, 24th November, 2009; Lot 93.

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