Galerie de vieux tableaux et musée des horreurs – old paintings and the museum of horrors – an invitation in the format of a postcard to the exhibition of horrors – gallery no. 6.
Most likely this postcard is an invitation to an exhibition called “Museum of Horrors” in which posters with large caricatures against Alfred Dreyfus’ supporters were displayed. The “Museum of Horrors” series was published during the Dreyfus Affair under a pseudonym, and numbered 51 large posters with anti-Dreyfus, anti-Semitic illustrations, and against the ‘Masons’, the series was published in France over a period of about a year, between October 1899 and December 1900. The original plan was to produce 200 posters in the series, but in fact only 51 were published. The first posters published in the series sold over 300,000 copies. In October 1899, the French police arrested several peddlers who were selling posters from the series on the orders of the district commander Louis Lepine. According to some reports, Lepine ordered to stop the distribution of the posters following an appeal he received from Baron de Rothschild, who claimed that the damage caused by their distribution was irreversible. In February 1900, the local police sent letters threatening to revoke the trade license of store owners who would sell the posters, and since then their distribution has ceased.
9×14 cm. Was not mailed. Good condition.
