Musée des Horreurs

Musée des Horreurs and Musée des Patriotes http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/museedeshorreurs/

 Authored pseudo-anonymously by an anti-Dreyfusard cartoonist going by the name of Victor Lenepveu, this series of posters was disseminated throughout Paris in reaction to the election of a pro-Dreyfusard cabinet whose leaders granted the innocent captain an official pardon in September 1899. They were printed over the course of one year before being banned by the Ministry of the Interior.

An introduction to the dramatis personae of the Dreyfus Affair from an anti-Dreyfusard perspective, these facsimiles of the original colorful posters adopt the attention-grabbing format of theatrical affiches. In the Musée des Horreurs, the figures of Dreyfus’s supporters are distorted and literally dehumanized, cast as animals in a nightmarish menagerie. By contrast, the Musée des Patriotes glorifies those working to undermine Dreyfus. The anti-Semitic journalist Edmond Drumont is cast as a gentleman, while Paul Déroulède, leader of the anti-Semitic Ligue des Patriotes, bears his chest with chivalric heroism.

Despite their ephemeral nature, the series of 52 prints was often preserved by collectors as a set. The Rubenstein Library owns an entire set; the original posters can be viewed in the reading room or online at http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/museedeshorreurs/