CARAN D’ACHE [Emmanuel Poiré dit] Carnet de chèques

First edition of this collection of caricatures in the form of a booklet of 24 cheques.

The booklet opens with a brief introduction dividing the work into three parts: Le chèque-obsession, l’Art de donner et de recevoir le chèque, Variation sur le verbe “Toucher le chèque”.

Each cheque is then accompanied by one or more cartoon drawings and a caption in the form of satirical comments.

Caran d’Ache denounced the bourgeois government’s thirst for money. The Töpferrian model of the story in pictures, the forerunner of the comic strip, is evident. H

owever, these cartoons are anti-Semitic. The character who embodies government corruption by tempting an elected official with ever-larger cheques is depicted with curly black hair and a hooked nose. He fits in with the anti-Jewish iconography that flourished in the second half of the 19th century. Caran d’Ache was anti-Dreyfus. He co-founded the weekly Psst…! with Jean-Louis Forain in 1898, whose anti-Semitic satire was undeniable. The periodical ran for 85 issues.

A very fresh copy, cover restored.