Anti-Semitic Hungarian Caricatures
Album of 89 original pen and ink drawings, probably used as the illustrations to captioned cartoons, all but a few signed in lower margins, the album lettered “Jllusztrációk 1890-1900 Cserépy 1”.
Budapest: 1890-1900.
Price: $2,500.00
About the item
1 vols. The drawings average about 7 x 5 inches; the album is 11-1/2 x 9 inches. Anti-Semitic Hungarian Caricatures. Original 3/4 calf, black cloth sides, spine perished, covers worn, a few minor tears without loss to the album's pages not affecting the mounted drawings, which are in fine condition.
Item #16301
Pasted on the first page of this intriguing album is the cover of a 1900 art exhibition and the page listing this artist, his Budapest address, and the number of his exhibition entry.
The drawings are carefully and competently executed, and are mostly of middle-class urban situations, generally involving two individuals in conversation, the settings suggesting that these are drawings for cartoons: smug waiter to irate diner, stage-door johnny to actress, street-vendor to prospect, petitioner to official, etc.
Over 35 of the drawings show figures with unflattering, stereotyped anti-Semitic Jewish features, as was unfortunately not uncommon at that time in Europe and elsewhere. A fascinating glimpse of Hungarian turn-of-the-century life, and prejudice.
