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3 000 €

Réf : 80337

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Victor LENEPVEU

(Jean JAURES)

[AFFAIRE DREYFUS] Musée des horreurs - Affiche originale lithographiée en couleurs - n°14 "L'Eléphant du Jourdain"

Imprimerie Lenepveu, Paris s.d. [janvier 1900], 49,8x65,2cm, une affiche.

Musée des horreurs – Original colour lithographed poster  – n° 14 “L'éléphant du Jourdain”
 

Original colour lithographed poster depicting Jean Jaurès as an elephant sitting on a chair and holding a bottle of “water from the Jordan”. Until then portrayed as a dog – caricaturists mocking his aggressiveness – Jean Jaurès is here, for the first time, represented as an elephant. It is a question here of highlighting his potbelly and his pachyderm silhouette, but we can, nevertheless, highlight the great dignity of this massive personality with a high gaze. The water from the Jordan is held on one of his hoofs and alludes to the rumour that he had his son baptised in the scared river, thus acting against his anticlerical policy. Despite the caricaturist's desire to ridicule Jean Jaurès, the choice of the elephant, a symbol of strength, prosperity and wisdom, is ultimately positive.
Transverse folds and tiny, minor, marginal tears.


Circulated between October 1899 and December 1900 in a France set ablaze by the Dreyfus Affair, these immense colour portraits are the work of Victor Lenepveu, who announced the publication of 150 and then 200 drawings, before finally producing only around fifty. Despite the 1881 law on the freedom of press allowing the dissemination of a politically subversive image, the publication of this nightmarish pantheon was interrupted by order of the Ministry of the Interior.
The fragility of the paper and the imposing size of these very violent posters, as well as their almost immediate seizure by the police, contributed to the disappearance of these caricatures which strongly left a mark on public opinion.
These horreurs were widely promoted by anti-Semitic newspapers that announced a fantasised print of 300,000 copies, thus insinuating the success of anti-Semitic ideas in the population.
On 1st October 1899, L'Intransigeant announced the publication of the Musée des horreurs in its columns: “Un dessinateur de beaucoup d'esprit, au coup de crayon d'un comique intense, M. V. Lenepveu, a eu l'heureuse idée d'inaugurer une série de portraits des vendus les plus célèbres de la tourbe dreyfusarde. Le titre de cette série « Musée des Horreurs » est suffisamment suggestif et indique bien ce qu'il promet. [...] C'est la maison Hayard qui mettra en vente, à partir d'aujourd'hui, le numéro 1 de cette désopilante série.” “An artist of great spirit, with an intense comical pencil stroke, M. V. Lenepveu, had the happy idea of inaugurating a series of portraits of the most famous sellouts of the Dreyfusard rabble. The title of this series “ Musée des Horreurs” is sufficiently suggestive and is a good indicator of what it promises. [...] It is Maison Hayard that will put up for sale, from today, issue number 1 of this hilarious series.” First a peddler then a bookseller-publisher, Napoléon Hayard (known as Léon Hayard) specialised in the marketing of anti-Dreyfusard and anti-Semitic ephemera and advertisements.
Today, however, copies in good condition of these pamphlet caricatures, which contributed to the social and political divide of France, are very rare. Published in the booming written press - at the same time as Émile Zola's famous “J'accuse !” - these propaganda materials had a significant impact on the younger generations and preceded the ideological violence of the 20th century.

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