Toulouse-Lautrec:
Babylone d'Allemagne par Victor Joze
Click on the poster for a larger reproduction

VICTOR Joze's Babylone d'Allemagne is a series of satirical accounts of corruption and debauchery in Germany. Its title is an insulting reference to Berlin (the "German Babylon"). The work almost caused an international incident when the German ambassador in Paris strongly objected to its publication.

Although Lautrec avoided blatant scenes of immorality, the combined image and title of the poster insinuate that "Babylonian" depravity characterized the very personification of Germany, the proud military forces that had brought France to her knees in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. The poster and book jacket with the same image were perceived as both a moral and political slur on Prussian militarism.

In a brilliantly condensed space, a white-uniformed officer parades through a cobbled street bounded on one side by a striped sentry box (which in the book jacket version runs along the spine). On the other, a flirtatious passerby raises an admiring eyebrow. By showing the officer in a plunging perspective from behind, Lautrec involves the viewer as a street spectator, and introduces an element of caricature in the Kaiser-like sentry, yet without turning the scene into a cartoon.

Babylone d'Allemagne par Victor Joze
1894; Desloge 91; W P12; D 351
Lithograph in three colors. 47 x 33 1/6 inches.
Artist's signature, date, and monogram; lower left.
Gift of the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation, 1987:43

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