Shadow theatre of the cabaret du Chat noir. According to Emmanuel POIRE, known as CARAN d'ACHE (1858-1901). Silhouette cut out of black lacquered zinc, lined with metal thread, representing the General Staff on horseback following Napoleon. Finished in an angle at the bottom. With its two handles, made of metal wire, for presentation. Subject height: 38.4 cm. - Height with angle: 55 cm. Height with handles: 68 cm. - Length: 67 cm. Old patch fixed with wire. Oxidations, shocks, scratches, folds, some holes and crushing, especially at the angle. BLACK CAT CABARET Descendant of a French artilleryman of the Napoleonic army, wounded at the Battle of Moscova, who later married a Polish woman and became Master of Arms at the Court in Moscow, Emmanuel POIRE (Moscow 1858-Paris 1909), is an active cartoonist and cartoonist during the last twenty years of the 19th century. In 1878, he left Russia for France where he did his military service. For five years, he served in the Ministry of War, for which he designed various models of uniforms. He wanted to become a military painter in the tradition of Edouard DETAILLE, and on his advice published his first drawings of military caricatures in 1880 under the pseudonym CARAN d'ACHE (karandach: pencil in Russian) in the newspaper La Vie militaire. It was in 1883 that he gave his first drawings to the weekly Le Chat noir, a humorous program of the eponymous cabaret, founded in 1881, rue de Laval in Montmartre, by Rodolphe SALIS (1851-1897). He then caricatured Parisian political and social life, but naturally turned towards the military world. In 1886, Caran d'Ache signed his first shows for the shadow theatre (Chinese) designed and directed by the painter Henri RIVIERE (1864-1951) at the cabaret du CHAT NOIR. He gained unprecedented notoriety and the cartoonist an international reputation. The Chinese process, with a sheet, a