Anti-semitic walking stick or knock stick. Cast brass, wood shaft, with metal ferrule. France, circa 1890s. Overall l. approx. 34 5/8 in. Handle approx. 3 x 2 1/2 in. 

An unusual French walking stick using exaggerated anti-Semitic stereotypes as design elements, possibly depicting Alfred Dreyfus (859-1935. The handle of cast brass depicts the discriminatory visage of a Jew with an exaggerated large nose and protruberant eyes. 

The 1890s saw a rise in Antisemitism in France, demonstrated most infamously in the Dreyfus Affair. Captain Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer wrongfully convicted of treason and was sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island - the French penal colony in French Guiana. A political movement to acquit Dreyfus was led notably by Émile Zola and other prominent "Dreyfusards." Opponents abounded, including Édouard Drumont, publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole. This stick may have indeed been the implement of one of the "Anti-Dreyfusards." The Affair remains one of the most notable examples of antisemitism as the cause of a miscarriage of justice. 

[Anti-Semitism, Propaganda, Walking Sticks, Canes] [Jewish History]