Description
LOUIS RAEMAEKERS Autograph letter Signed.
Dutch cartoonist.
ALS. 1p and integral blank leaf. Linwood [?]. 11th September 1916. To "Dear Sir".
"I am back from the Front and have seen again the cartoon but I really think it is best not to ad [sic] any colour. So I will ask the Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond Street, to send it to you. I received in good order your second payment." After the subscription, Louis Raemaekers has added "This letter was sent by me in the wrong envelope; it shows you that I really think the drawing is better uncoloured. I received in good order your second payment, please excuse me for making the mistake with the letter."
8vo. Approx 7 x 4.5 inches. Mounting traces to verso of top edge of integral blank leaf, else near fine.
Louis Raemaeker is most closely associated with his propaganda cartoons produced during the First World War, showing supposed German atrocities. He was born in Roermond, Netherlands, the son of an ethnically German newspaper editor. He worked for the Algemeen Handelsblad from 1906, where he produced graphic cartoons of the harsh German military rule in Belgium. He depicted Germans as barbarians and Kaiser Wilhelm II as an ally of Satan. These were considered so damaging to the German reputation that the Kaiser placed a bounty of 12,000 guilders on Louis Raemaekers, dead or alive. The German government forced the Dutch to put him on trial but he was acquitted and fled to England. His work was there published in the Times and syndication was soon taken up by American newspapers and magazines. It is estimated that, during WW1, his cartoons had a circulation of 300 million in the U.S. alone. These typically showed such scenes as brutish looking German soldiers threatening nurses and were so influential on public opinion that Louis Raemaekers has been called "the cartoonist who helped win the war." Autograph letters of Louis Raemaekers are rare.
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