William Robert Macaire's Answer to Wilson

Category

Library Item

Item no

32885

Title

William Robert Macaire's Answer to Wilson

Description

"Well, Sir, if you insist, we will try to behave like gentlemen."

"This inimitable drawing is one of the happiest examples of the artist's genius for creating figures to typify the blend of effrontery, bluff, and menace, which has characterized so many of the German Government's notes to neutral states, and not least that of 4 May 1916, which practically conceded President Wilson's demands set out in the description to the last cartoon. Note the sinister, batrachian legs of the oily spokesman, and how the sinuous line of his formidable stick seconds the facial expression of the burglarious "gentleman," decorated with the Iron Cross, in the background. President Wilson's air of professional rectitude shows in amusing contrast with Robert's impudent pose, and Bertram's brutality. Robert Macaire is the French cant name for a "malfaiteur affectant les dehors d'un homme du monde.""

Artist / maker

Raemaekers, Louis

Date

1917

Size

34.3 x 27.2 cm

Type

Chromolithograph

Location

Art and Design Library

Copyright

Louis Raemaekaers' drawings are reproduced by kind permission of the Louis Raemaekers Foundation.