L'Assiette au Beurre (literally The Butter Plate, and roughly translating to the English expression pork barrel) was an illustrated French weekly satirical magazine with anarchist political leanings that was chiefly produced between 1901 and 1912. It was revived as a monthly for a time and ceased production in 1936.
The magazine's caricature and editorial cartoon content was drawn from a varied cadre of illustrator-contributors of many backgrounds and disparate artistic styles. The content often focused on socialist and anarchist ideas. The first series expired on 15 October 1912. A second series was published between 1921 and 1925 on a monthly basis, eventually becoming a single supplement.
At the time of its founding near the start of the twentieth century, France was divided on crucial issues such as the extension of military service, revanchism (the call of French nationalists to avenge and reclaim from Germany the annexed territories of Alsace-Lorraine), right of association, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, and the emergence of new and radical political and social ideas in France such as revolutionary syndicalism, antimilitarism, anti-clericalism, Proletarian internationalism, feminism and the rise of labour law, which were all subjects of feature in the magazine.
L'Assiette au Beurre is a valuable iconographic testament of the Belle Époque ("Beautiful Era") period in France, characterized by optimism, peace at home and in Europe, new technology and scientific discoveries. Georges Wolinski (killed in the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo), indicated in 2011 that his magazine's work was the legacy of L'Assiette au Beurre.
Description
From its first appearance, L'Assiette au Beurre registered as a departure in form from other French humor publications. Each issue was made up of chiefly two- or three-color-inked cartoons and caricatures, given full- or sometimes double-page placement (instead of the more common quarter page real estate granted to such content in related French publications), with each installment containing a minimum of 16 illustrated pages. Special editions held up to 48 pages. Images were published from original drawings using a zincography, planographic printing process.
Periodically, a single artist was chosen for an issue to provide a variety of panels on a specific topic, making that issue a veritable collected album for that illustrator. Sometimes a team was employed as well. According to Kevin C. Robbins in Roving Anarchists Flâneurs: The Visual Politics of Popular Protest via Parisian Street Art in L'Assiette au beurre (1900-1914), "For the most sardonic of multi-media exploits, Assiette staff paired artists with noted, left-wing essayists, poets, or novelists who provided suggestions for timely or provocative captions for each image submitted."
History
Founding
Samuel Sigismond Schwarz was the magazine's founder and director. Schwarz was a Jewish immigrant to France from Hungary, becoming a French naturalized citizen.
After arriving in Paris in 1878, Schwarz became a book broker, specializing in the work of Victor Hugo through association with Paul Meurice. He later managed and was the editor of Le Frou Frou (1900-1923), another French humorist periodical that famously featured Picasso sketches, as well as Le Tutu and Le Pompon — magazines also in the humorist vein and known to have had anti-Dreyfusard leanings.<ref>{ { cite journal|last1= Fontana|first1= Michèle|last2=Bernard|first2=Sarrazin |url= http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/roman_0048-8593_2000_num_30_107_914|title=Léon Bloy, Journalisme et subversion, 1874-1917|journal= Romantisme| location=Paris|year=2000 |volume= 30|issue=107| pages= 123–124|language=French}}</ref> Sigismund established a presence in 1895 at 9 rue Sainte-Anne in Paris as an editor of serial novels and later opened a retail space on behalf of Librairie Schwarz, located at 58 Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin.
He launched the first issue of L'Assiette au Beurre on 4 April 1901, priced at 25 centimes; it did not have a specific theme, which later editions often did. The front cover illustration titled "Caisse de grève" ("Strike Fund") was by Théophile Steinlen and referred to the labour movement in the communes of Montceau-les-Mines and the involvement of Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, among other Interior Ministers. Other illustrations appearing in the first edition include one by Adolphe Willette depicting the signing of an illustrated letter that plays on the idiomatic meaning of "L'Assiette au Beurre" – to lines one pockets.