La Langouste du Réveillon, for La Sociale

In 1887, Signac executed a few drawings intended to illustrate articles for the magazine La Vie moderne. These reveal Signac's use of the Pointillist technique, and were his first experience as an illustrator. The present drawing and the following lot were produced for one of the anarchist magazines to which Signac contributed, La Sociale. The latter and the magazine Père Peinard were both managed by his friend Émile Pouget. Other examples of anarchist magazines in which Signac collaborated were La Révolte and Les Temps nouveaux, which were managed by his other friend Jean Grave. Signac rarely did political drawings, and the two present lots for La Sociale are more caricatural and narrative; they display Signac's mastering of the pen and ink medium.