This 1915 cover from La Baïonnette, illustrated by Louis Renéfer, turns aerial warfare into bitter farce. As soldiers fire wildly at unseen planes, civilians scatter in panic—children, women, and bystanders caught in the absurd logic of modern war. The original caption reassures onlookers, “Don’t be afraid… they don’t kill civilians,” a line made brutally ironic by the chaos unfolding below.
French wartime satire at its sharpest, exposing how easily civilians become collateral in the name of progress.
Casewrap sewn binding | Vibrant, crisp vintage tones | Ruled | 5x7 in.
Drawn by Léonnec for a 1915 issue of La Baïonnette, this illustration shifts attention away from the battlefield to a private moment inside a hospital ward. A nurse, still in uniform, pauses to adjust her stockings, her posture poised between fatigue and composure.
The caption frames the contrast directly: public heroism versus private vulnerability. Decorated service and daily strain sit side by side, rendered with gentle humor rather than mockery. By focusing on an unguarded gesture, La Baïonnette captures the human cost of wartime service without spectacle.
Metal spiral binding | Front illustration and dark grey back cover | Interior document pocket | 6x8 in.
Drawn by Sobek for a 1915 wartime issue of La Baïonnette, this interior illustration shows a nurse paused while reading a letter from the front. Her posture is steady, but her expression carries the weight of fatigue and restraint.
The caption supplies the dark irony: the soldier writes that he has received both a medal and grievous injury at once. Understatement collides with brutality. With minimal gesture and muted tone, the image exposes the human cost of war through stillness rather than spectacle.
Metal spiral binding | Front illustration and dark grey back cover | Interior document pocket | 6x8 in.
This 1916 page from La Baïonnette, illustrated by Jacques Nam, presents a compact allegory of wartime transformation. In the upper panel, Médor lies at ease, a domestic companion guarding private virtue. Below, the same dog stands alert and watchful, recast as a sentinel of national duty. The caption makes the shift explicit: “Before, I guarded Ninette’s virtue. Now, I guard the honor of France.”
Simple and striking, the image reflects how war quietly redraws the boundaries between private life and public obligation. Loyalty, once personal and familiar, is redefined as a national resource. Without depicting battle or heroics, the cartoon captures the moral logic of total war, where even everyday symbols are pressed into service.
Casewrap sewn binding | Vibrant, crisp vintage tones | Ruled | 5x7 in.
Designed by Lucien-Henri Weiluc for a 1916 issue of La Baïonnette, this cover condenses wartime censorship into a single, exaggerated gesture. A wide-eyed figure presses a finger to her lips beneath the command Taisez-vous! Méfiez-vous!—“Keep quiet. Be careful.”
The image turns instruction into satire. Silence becomes performative, caution exaggerated, and vigilance visibly anxious. With distortion and direct address, La Baïonnette captures how censorship on the home front seeped into everyday expression, shaping speech through fear as much as decree.
Casewrap sewn binding | Vibrant, crisp vintage tones | Ruled | 5x7 in.
Automatic bundle pricing applies when two journals are added.
This 1916 La Baïonnette illustration by Sacha Zaliouk presents a lineup of “undesirables”: financiers, profiteers, and political operators rendered as exposed heads, stripped of setting and pretense. Each face is isolated and economically drawn, inviting recognition rather than explanation.
The satire relies on accumulation. No single figure dominates; together they form a type—the familiar human inventory of wartime corruption. The original caption openly wishes that the winds of war might rid society of them for good, turning caricature into judgment rather than humor.
Revived now as a reminder that corruption never really disappears, but history always keeps the receipts.
Casewrap sewn binding | Vibrant, crisp vintage tones | Ruled | 5.75×8 in.
Published during the First World War, this illustration from La Baïonnette sets domestic calm against the language of wartime heroism. A woman reclines reading, surrounded by resting animals, while stylized wings frame the scene beneath the caption “Aux aviateurs, rien d’impossible” (“For aviators, nothing is impossible”).
Rather than celebrating flight or military achievement, the image deflates heroic rhetoric through contrast. Ordinary life remains untroubled, intimate, and unmoved, quietly puncturing inflated claims of progress and glory.
Created by Jacques Nam, the illustration reflects a strain of wartime satire in which irony, not spectacle, becomes a form of resistance.
Metal spiral binding | Interior document pocket | Ruled | 6x8 in.
Automatic bundle pricing applies when two journals are added.
Illustrated by Fabien Fabiano in January 1917, this La Baïonnette cover captures a quieter side of the First World War. A decorated French soldier smiles while holding a small portrait of a woman—treated less as a keepsake than as a lucky charm.
Titled Fétiches et Mascottes, the image reflects how wartime culture encouraged soldiers to carry talismans and symbolic objects as emotional stabilizers. Affection becomes portable; intimacy is reduced to an image meant to steady men amid industrial violence.
Casewrap sewn binding | Vibrant, crisp vintage tones | Ruled
Illustrated by Jacques Nam, this January 10, 1917 centerpiece from La Baïonnette assembles a loose inventory of the fetishes, mascots, and symbolic figures that circulated through the French army during the First World War. Animals, caricatures, and objects appear side by side, each labeled or implied as a bearer of meaning, luck, or morale.
Rather than depicting combat or command, the image treats superstition and symbolism as ordinary features of wartime life. Official insignia, private rituals, and humorous stand-ins occupy the same visual space, without hierarchy or emphasis.
Casewrap sewn binding | Vibrant, crisp vintage tones | Ruled | 5x7 in.
Automatic bundle pricing applies when two journals are added.
Illustrated by Louis Icart, this 1915 La Baïonnette cartoon punctures the superstition and bravado that often accompany war. A uniformed officer tumbles helplessly through the air, clutching his “lucky charm” as weapons, symbols, and personal effects scatter above the battlefield below. The joke is blunt and unsparing: talismans, rituals, and authority offer no protection once violence takes over.
Like much of La Baïonnette’s wartime satire, the image refuses heroic consolation, exposing how easily faith in symbols collapses under real conditions of war.
Metal spiral binding | Interior document pocket | Ruled | 6x8 in.
WHY THIS OBJECT EXISTS
During the First World War, satire became one of the few public ways to speak plainly about power, bureaucracy, and survival. This image belongs to that moment. Owning it isn’t about nostalgia for Chaplin or caricature — it’s about keeping a visual language of dissent present in everyday life.
WHAT YOU’RE BUYING
An archival illustration adapted for practical use. Not decorative. Not neutral. Meant to be handled, written in, and lived with.
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This 1917 cover from La Baïonnette introduces Pierre-Henri Cami’s satirical feature “Charlot correspondant de Guerre,” a wartime send-up of Charlie Chaplin’s iconic screen persona. The original French subtitle, “texte et dessins de Cami” (text and drawings by Cami), signals the issue’s focus on Charlot as a caricatured war correspondent navigating the absurdities of military life.
The back cover reproduces a page from the same 22 March 1917 issue, including Cami’s line drawings and French dialogue, preserving the texture and humor of the publication as it originally appeared. Together, the front and back covers form a small archival object from a moment when European satire met the theatricality of power with ink, irony, and invention.
See the full Cami: Charlie Chaplin Collection here
Casewrap sewn binding | Vibrant, crisp vintage tones | Ruled | 5x7 in.
Produced in small batches from archival sources. Availability varies.
A 1916 World War I illustration by A. Willette, published in La Baïonnette, this cartoon leaves little to interpretation. Entrenched power is not shown stepping aside voluntarily; it is forced out through collective action. Willette frames political removal as a physical, popular act rather than a polite appeal to authority.
Created during the collapse of old empires, the image reflects a moment when public patience with authoritarian bravado had worn thin. A century later, its message remains direct and unsettlingly familiar: when power refuses accountability, pressure does not come from above—it comes from below.
100% ring-spun cotton | Pearlized tear-away label | Unisex
Jacques Nam stages a lively animal fable: a circle of creatures gathered like a choir, framed by rows of watchful crows. Each figure reacts to the small drama at the center, where the talkative magpie has finally been quieted so the others can be heard. The scene balances humor with a touch of mischief, turning group dynamics into light satire.
The original caption captures the punchline more directly: “Did you see the magpie? It was the only way to make her keep quiet!” Nam lets the animals carry the joke, relying on posture, expression, and rhythm rather than exaggeration.
A charming glimpse of early twentieth-century illustration, playful without losing its wit.
100% ring-spun cotton | Pearlized, tear-away label | Oeko-Tex certified | Unisex
This 1916 illustration from La Baïonnette, drawn by Gerda Wegener, turns wartime paranoia into social farce. Three women lean together in exaggerated secrecy while two dachshunds move anxiously below them—literal punchlines to the caption’s warning that “they have ears.”
The image captures an atmosphere shaped less by official authority than by rumor and suspicion. Wegener exaggerates fashion and posture alike, stretching bodies into caricature while preserving the delicacy of watercolor and line. The preserved oval frame reinforces the sense of a composed illustration plate, exposing how quickly fear reorganizes everyday social life under pressure.
100% ring-spun cotton | Pearlized, tear-away label | Oeko-Tex certified | Unisex
Illustrated by Armand Gallo, this La Baïonnette image, published during the First World War, turns wartime censorship into quiet satire. A fox looks upward while a crow perches above beside a warning nailed to a tree: “Taisez-vous — Méfiez-vous!” (“Keep quiet — be on your guard”).
Rather than depicting battle or heroism, the image shows authority as atmosphere—posted warnings, enforced vigilance, and speech reduced to risk. Using animal figures, the cartoon exposes how obedience takes hold not through force, but through fear made routine.
Original illustration from the French political magazine La Baïonnette, preserved as an archival artifact of wartime control and dissent.
100% ring-spun cotton | Pearlized, tear-away label | Oeko-Tex certified | Unisex
Drawn by Léonnec for the1915 issue of La Baïonnette, this illustration captures the mix of competence, fatigue, and unguarded humanity that marked the daily life of wartime nurses. Rather than focusing on the front lines, it turns inward to a private moment at the edge of a hospital ward.
The caption provides the twist: “Where heroism becomes woman again — Of course, I saw the Battle of the Marne, but this… I cannot do.” It’s a sly nod to the gulf between public expectation and personal limits, using gentle comedy to show how even decorated nurses navigated ordinary vulnerabilities.
A lively example of Léonnec’s wartime style, balancing humor with the subtle pressures of service.
Crew length | Recycled Polyester-Cotton blend | All-over print with solid black toe and heel accents
A century before memes, there was La Baïonnette — a French satirical magazine that used illustration as resistance. This piece, “L’Aigle Impérial” (The Imperial Eagle), was published during World War I. In the cartoon, the eagle represents German imperial power under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Its wings are tattered, its body is wounded, and the caption beneath the image reads: “He will return to his nest, stripped and wounded — and never come out again.” It wasn’t just art — it was prophecy, mocking the collapse of a regime that believed itself unstoppable.
Perfect for: anti-authoritarian energy lovers of vintage illustration anyone who enjoys their coffee with a side of political catharsis Public domain artwork, restored from an original 1916 print. Because resistance art never goes out of style.
Crew length | Recycled Polyester-Cotton blend | All-over print with solid black toe and heel accents
This 1916 page from La Baïonnette, illustrated by Jacques Nam, presents a compact allegory of wartime transformation. In the upper panel, Médor lies at ease, a domestic companion guarding private virtue. Below, the same dog stands alert and watchful, recast as a sentinel of national duty. The caption makes the shift explicit: “Before, I guarded Ninette’s virtue. Now, I guard the honor of France.”
Simple and striking, the image reflects how war quietly redraws the boundaries between private life and public obligation. Loyalty, once personal and familiar, is redefined as a national resource. Without depicting battle or heroics, the cartoon captures the moral logic of total war, where even everyday symbols are pressed into service.
Crew length | Casual, dress, active | All-over print with solid black toe and heel accents
This 1916 page from La Baïonnette, illustrated by Jacques Nam, presents a compact allegory of wartime transformation. In the upper panel, Médor lies at ease, a domestic companion guarding private virtue. Below, the same dog stands alert and watchful, recast as a sentinel of national duty. The caption makes the shift explicit: “Before, I guarded Ninette’s virtue. Now, I guard the honor of France.”
Simple and striking, the image reflects how war quietly redraws the boundaries between private life and public obligation. Loyalty, once personal and familiar, is redefined as a national resource. Without depicting battle or heroics, the cartoon captures the moral logic of total war, where even everyday symbols are pressed into service.
Crew length | Casual, dress, active | All-over print with solid black toe and heel accents
These socks feature Cami’s 1917 illustration “Jalousie!” from La Baïonnette, a sharp caricature of Kaiser Wilhelm II reacting to the popularity of Charlot—Charlie Chaplin’s French screen persona. The original caption includes the plea, “Ne jalousez pas Charlot, Sire! Votre orgueil peut se rassurer! Jamais Charlot ne fera rire autant que vous faites pleurer!” (Do not be jealous of Charlot, Sire! Your pride may rest easy! Charlot will never make people laugh as much as you make them cry!).
The image shows the Kaiser clutching a special issue of La Baïonnette devoted to Charlot, his face twisted with theatrical resentment. Cami’s satire captures the fragile vanity of imperial power during the First World War, exaggerating posture and expression to expose the insecurity beneath the uniform. Rendered in bold color blocks, the illustration translates strikingly into wearable art.
Crew length | Recycled poly-cotton blend | All-over print with solid black toe and heel accents
A wartime caricature in which Cami lampoons the Kaiser’s theatrical posturing, portraying him as a stiff, blood-spattered figure collapsing under his own bluster. The exaggerated uniform and rigid stance echo the brittle self-importance Cami found in wartime leadership.
Beside it, the stark line-drawing variant strips the same figure down to its essentials, emphasizing the nervous tension and fragile bravado beneath the pomp. Together the two images form a pointed critique of authoritarian performance in the late-war atmosphere.
Crew length | Recycled Polyester-Cotton blend | All-over print with solid black toe and heel accents
Drawn by Fabien Fabiano for the 1915 issue of La Baïonnette, this spread gathers a series of small scenes around a bold red cross, each capturing a different facet of wartime nursing. The illustrations move from quiet conversations to quick moments of comfort, revealing how medical care relied as much on presence and steadiness as on skill.
Among the vignettes, a bedside exchange offers the clearest expression of the plate’s spirit: a nurse leaning close to reassure a wounded soldier, “You will heal here.” The line distills the mixture of duty, tenderness, and resolve that shaped the daily rhythm of First World War hospitals.
A richly composed portrayal of nursing as both labor and refuge within the broader landscape of war.
Durable stainless steel core with enamel finish resists rust and staining | Lead and BPA-free
This 1915 La Baïonnette cartoon by Emmanuel Barcet skewers the militarized paranoia that swept France during World War I. Two refined men peer over a ruined hillside and whisper about how “perfect” it once was for a 420-mm gun — the kind of fear-logic that turns ordinary places into imagined battlegrounds. The joke isn’t the woman; it’s how war rewires civilians to see threats everywhere.
A century later, the warning remains the same: fear is a powerful storyteller, and it can redraw a whole landscape long before the fighting begins.
Published in October 1916, this cover from La Baïonnette presents a stark “before and after” rendering of Kaiser Wilhelm II himself. Split cleanly down the center, the image shows the same imperial figure before the war and after its toll: on one side intact and authoritative, on the other hollowed, darkened, and visibly eroded by prolonged violence.
Signed by Gus Bofa, the image avoids battlefield spectacle in favor of moral indictment. Uniform, rank, and medals remain intact, but the face of command bears the cost of what it has unleashed. The symmetry turns caricature into accusation, suggesting that militarism ultimately consumes those who wield it.
Created at the height of the First World War, the cover reflects a broader current in French wartime satire that treated empire as self-corrosive rather than heroic. Power survives, but only as something depleted.
This 1916 page from La Baïonnette, illustrated by Jacques Nam, presents a compact allegory of wartime transformation. In the upper panel, Médor lies at ease, a domestic companion guarding private virtue. Below, the same dog stands alert and watchful, recast as a sentinel of national duty. The caption makes the shift explicit: “Before, I guarded Ninette’s virtue. Now, I guard the honor of France.”
Simple and striking, the image reflects how war quietly redraws the boundaries between private life and public obligation. Loyalty, once personal and familiar, is redefined as a national resource.
Without depicting battle or heroics, the cartoon captures the moral logic of total war, where even everyday symbols are pressed into service.
Drawn by Ray Ordner and published in 1916 in La Baïonnette, this French political cartoon targets the circular logic of authoritarian bureaucracy. An official issues the command: “Sort every document… then destroy them.” Obedience replaces purpose, and procedure becomes power even when the work itself is rendered meaningless.
A century later, the joke still lands. Bureaucratic authority continues to assert itself through rules, paperwork, and compliance for their own sake—proof that absurdity is not a flaw of authoritarian systems, but one of their tools.
Add two mugs to your cart to receive an automatic bundle discount.
Illustrated by Charles Léandre and published in 1916, this drawing captures the weary theater of political power at work. Two officials confer, gesture, and posture, insulated by procedure while real consequences remain offstage.
The caption reads simply: La séance continue — “The session continues.” It is less an observation than an indictment. Meetings extend, debates circle, and responsibility dissolves into ritual.
A century later, the mechanics are familiar. Authority still performs continuity as a substitute for action. The language has changed. The routine has not.
Add two mugs to your cart to receive an automatic bundle discount.
“À la porte les tyrans” (“Out with the tyrants”). Drawn by A. Willette during the First World War, this La Baïonnetteillustration channels popular anger into blunt visual command. Tyranny is not debated, reformed, or negotiated—it is expelled.
Revisited today, the image reads less as propaganda than as warning. Authoritarian power rarely exits on its own. It leaves only when challenged, resisted, and pushed back beyond the threshold.
This 1916 La Baïonnette cartoon captures a pattern we still know too well: the comfortable lecturing the wounded about “sacrifice.” A plump rear-guard bourgeois complains about rising prices while a frontline soldier sits bandaged beside him—an early reminder that privilege has always tried to borrow the language of suffering.
In Gilded Age 2.0, the script hasn’t changed much. Those insulated from the consequences keep insisting they’re the ones who feel them most. Satire like this makes the gap impossible to ignore.
Add two mugs to your cart to receive an automatic bundle discount.
This is resistance art — not nostalgia. In 1916, the French satirical magazine La Baïonnette used cartoons to challenge authoritarian government culture. They couldn’t openly say “the system is failing,” so they drew the failure instead. A century later, the message still hits: power protecting paperwork instead of people.
Monsieur Lebureau, buried in documents, insists: “I swear the bureaucracy will hold!”
Drawn by Opnor and originally published in the French political magazine La Baïonnette, this 1916 cartoon skewers the machinery of authoritarian bureaucracy. The figure at its center is not solving problems or producing results—he is generating paperwork, defending procedure, and mistaking process for authority.
The satire cuts deeper than its moment. Authoritarian systems do not require effectiveness to function. They require documentation, repetition, and compliance. When power turns inward to protect itself, paperwork becomes not a byproduct, but the weapon.
A century-old French satire, now on a mug. From the WWI magazine La Baïonnette, this caricature page mocked the “undesirables” of its day — politicians, profiteers, and blowhards who thought they were untouchable.
The caption reads:
“Quelques têtes d’indésirables — History will take out the trash.”
Perfect for desks, offices, and anyone who appreciates anti-authoritarian humor.
Illustrated by Adolphe Willette during the First World War, this La Baïonnette image shows the imperial German eagle wounded and forced low, its promise of dominance reduced to exhaustion and blood.
French wartime satire regularly used the eagle to embody militarism and authoritarian power. Here, the symbol is stripped of grandeur and made to confront its own limits.
A century-old example of resistance art: unsentimental, direct, and openly contemptuous of the myth of invincible empire.
Add two mugs to your cart to receive an automatic bundle discount.
Illustrated by Fabien Fabiano in January 1917, this La Baïonnette cover captures a quieter side of the First World War. A decorated French soldier smiles while holding a small portrait of a woman—treated less as a keepsake than as a lucky charm.
Titled Fétiches et Mascottes, the image reflects how wartime culture encouraged soldiers to carry talismans and symbolic objects as emotional stabilizers.
Affection becomes portable; intimacy is reduced to an image meant to steady men amid industrial violence.
Cami stages an explosive encounter between Charlot and the Kaiser, turning imperial swagger into slapstick. The Tramp—balanced on a chair and armed with an oversized mallet—brings it down on the Kaiser’s spiked helmet with comic precision. The cartoon’s theatrical costumes and outsized props mock wartime pomposity, showing how performance and power often collapse into farce.
A sharp example of Cami’s 1917 satire, where humor doubles as critique.
La Baïonnette’s 1917 caricature imagines Kaiser Wilhelm II attempting to enlist “Master Charlot” in a theatrical imperial fantasy. The French caption has the Kaiser saying, “Voulez-vous jouer avec moi, master Charlot? Prenez cette couronne, vous allez me sacrer empereur du monde” (Do you want to play with me, Master Charlot? Take this crown and you will crown me emperor of the world). The joke turns on Charlot’s quiet refusal: instead of cooperating, he appears with an oversized mallet, poised to puncture the spectacle.
Pierre Henri Cami’s wartime satire exposes the brittle vanity of authoritarian ambition during the First World War, using Charlie Chaplin’s screen persona to puncture the pretensions of power. A striking piece of early twentieth-century political humor with enduring relevance.
Durable stainless steel core with enamel finish resists rust and staining | Lead and BPA-free
A 1916 illustration from La Baïonnette by Jacques Nam presents a playful animal fable staged like a chorus. Gathered creatures look inward as the talkative magpie at the center has finally been silenced, allowing the rest to be heard. The humor lies in gesture and arrangement rather than exaggeration, turning group dynamics into quiet satire.
The original caption captures the punchline more directly: “Did you see the magpie? It was the only way to make her keep quiet!” Nam lets the animals carry the joke, relying on posture, expression, and rhythm rather than exaggeration.
Natural wood, black, or white frames with matching hands | Silent quartz mechanism
Finally — a tote that tells fascists where to go. Taken from a 1916 French magazine cover and paired with the slogan “À LA PORTE LES TYRANS” (Out the door, tyrants), this bag blends vintage art with modern defiance.
Art. History. Resistance. And room for snacks.
100% heavy cotton canvas | Flat corners and sewn construction with reinforced stitching
This two-sided tote pairs two satirical illustrations from Cami’s 1917 feature “Charlot correspondant de Guerre” in La Baïonnette. On one side, Charlot receives a registered letter from a uniformed official beneath the line, “Voici une lettre recommandée que je vous apporte” (Here is a registered letter I am delivering to you), a small moment of wartime bureaucracy rendered in Cami’s playful hand.
The reverse side reproduces a companion drawing in which Charlot, flustered and anxious, faces an authority figure ready to give orders. These scenes come from the same 22 March 1917 issue and reflect Cami’s larger project: using Chaplin’s persona to expose the absurdities of military life, wartime paperwork, and the comical posturing of officials. Together, they create a portable archival vignette of early twentieth-century satire.
100% heavy cotton canvas | Flat corners and sewn construction with reinforced stitching
A century before memes, there was La Baïonnette — a French satirical magazine that used illustration as resistance. This piece, “L’Aigle Impérial” (The Imperial Eagle), was published during World War I. In the cartoon, the eagle represents German imperial power under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Its wings are tattered, its body is wounded, and the caption beneath the image reads: “He will return to his nest, stripped and wounded — and never come out again.” It wasn’t just art — it was prophecy, mocking the collapse of a regime that believed itself unstoppable.
Perfect for: anti-authoritarian energy; lovers of vintage illustration; anyone who enjoys their coffee with a side of political catharsis artwork from 1916. Because resistance art never goes out of style.
