?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
DESIGNER UNKNOWN DÉFENDEZ - VOUS CONTRE LA SYPHILIS. Circa 1930. 46 1/2x31 inches, 118x78 3/4 cm. PAG, Paris. Condition B: losses along vertical and horizontal folds; creases, abrasions and staining in margins and image. Paper. Framed. A public awareness poster to warn the populace about the dangers of syphilis. In no uncertain terms it reads, "Defend yourself against syphilis. Don't expose yourself to infection, but if you already have it: to avoid spreading it to those near you, so that your children are not maimed, so that you yourself avoid becoming, sooner or later, BLIND, PARALYZED, ATAXIC or MAD start treatment right away from your doctor or at anti-veneral dispensaries. Ask the Ministry of Health for the list of addresses." This poster, which was part of a large campaign all over Paris at the time, made an impression on Henry Miller, who writes in Tropic of Cancer, "In every Metro station there are grinning skulls that greet you with Défendez-vous contre la syphilis! Wherever there are walls, there are posters with bright venomous crabs heralding the approach of cancer. No matter where you go, no matter what you touch, there is cancer and syphilis."
