Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901 )The Mad Cow. Poster. 1896. Lithograph. [595 x 820]. Delteil 364; Wittrock P27. Printed in colors. Beautiful proof on thin ivory vellum, formerly cloth-backed. Small lack and grayish soiling at the upper edge of the folio. Other large irregular losses in the lower left corner, affecting the lower leg of the character. Tear of 40 mm at the right edge towards the center. Some scattered foxing and stains. Traces of glue at the edges of the folio on the reverse. The "Promenade de la Vache enragée" or "Vachalcade" was a carnival procession in Montmartre organized in 1896 and 1897 by artists and Montmartreans in response to the great processions of the Boeuf Gras that marched in those years. "The Montmartre of the cabarets inaugurates a multitude of charivariques demonstrations as much as a sociability of cabarets. The latter are often the starting points of anarchistic processions that roam the Butte at night, with the aim of attracting the city sergeants, while a number of removals are carried out more discreetly at the wooden bell. [ What exactly is a "Vachalcade"? It is a carnival cavalcade in mockery of the "Mad Cow" which embodies the misery of poor bohemians and artists, as well as a reference to the eponymous novel by Goudeau, patriarch of the old Hydropaths, in short, an antithesis to the great parades of the "Bœuf Gras" of the Grands Boulevards. [...] An animal, gaunt and furious, is claimed as the emblem of the misery of the artists as well as of the rage which animates them, of the hunger which makes them enraged following the example of this cow which one pulls by the tail to join the two ends, on the steaks of which one breaks one's teeth and which one tenderizes only by the ether and the absinth. The festival consists of a procession, a raffle and a concert at the Moulin Rouge for the benefit of "the foundation of a relief fund for the unfortunate artists of Montmartre". This charitable dimension is essential for the cartoonists, who have lived very badly with the miserable death of some of them [...] A newspaper is obviously founded for the occasion, directed by the ex-litigator Roedel . One reads the memories of Emile Zola, Anatole France or Henri Rochefort on their frequentation of the mad cow. Rodin will make a passage in the procession, estimated at 450 volunteers around the satirists themselves. The last word goes to Willette who thanks the participants whose devoted help made it possible to carry out a difficult task, that of taking the mad cow by the horns and presenting it to its people of Montmartre. Note: "This periodical is presented in 30 × 40 cm format. The periodicity was to be quarterly "at the time of the terms, in other words four times a year" (Vache Enragée, n° 1, p. 3), which still underlines the proximity of the demonstration with the problem of the badly housed. [...] It has so far been impossible to find any other trace than the two issues produced on the occasion of each of the two processions, in 1896 and 1897." (Laurent Bihl, " L'Armée du chahut : les deux Vachalcades de 1896 et 1897 ", Sociétés & Représentations 2009/1 (n° 27), p. 167-191).