Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator. The period he created his art was known as the Belle Époque and his focus was on the decadence in Parisian society. Victor Joze's (Lautrec's friend) Babylone d'Allemagne is a series of satirical accounts of corruption and debauchery in Germany. It's title (not shown in this version before text) is an insulting reference to Berlin (the German Babylon). Lautrec's poster focused the spectator's attention an the hindquarters of four horses, the largest of which was also being closely observed by a caricature of the Kaiser standing in a guard box. The implications of this, along with the book's title, (not shown in this version) provoked a protest from the German ambassador to France and nearly caused an international incident...Lautrec refused to stop distribution of the poster, and as he had paid for it, the publisher was not able to stop the distribution himself.