These sketches were also astonishingly misogynist. This one here, by the French illustrator Joseph Hémard, has one man tell the other "I thought you bought Oxygénée Cusenier to regain your strength and your rights", with the other replying: "Yes, but she's the one who drinks it!"

I would like to add that the presence of the monkey makes me extremely anxious, as they were so often used as racist caricatures of colonised populations. This seems to be a - giant! - Barbary macaque, which, together with the landscape & the Roman ruins, points to this being set in North Africa.

Explorers in hot climates also depended on "Oxygénée Cusenier" according to these strange sketches. This one here, by the French illustrator Falco from 1909, shows an unnamed European explorer in a desert explaining that his endurance was due to this particular brand of absinthe!

In the sketch, Robert Peary is depicted as telling the porter: "What do you bring me there? Oxygénée Cusenier? Would you be so kind as to leave this crate on land! Within six months, we would eat our provisions [meant to last] for two years!"

In addition to these sketches, there was also one, by Paul d'Espagnat, about an imaginary expedition by the US explorer Robert Peary to the South Pole. Unlike Frederick Albert Cook, Peary made sure to leave absinthe "Oxygénée Cusenier" behind, because it allegedly increased the appetite!

The range of topics covered in these sketches is astonishing. In this one here - entitled "Repopulation" - by Paul d'Espagnat from 1908, one man tells the other: "f I were the Government, I would make Oxygénée Cusenier, like education, free and compulsory. And, in ten years, there would be sixty million French people!" Amazing to see absinthe advertised as a tool of natalism, here, when it was so often decried as responsible for the degeneration of France!

This depiction of the former sultan of the Ottoman empire as an absinthe enthusiast is particularly interesting if we consider that Abdul Hamid II apparently did not drink alcohol as an adult.

On this, see, for example Abdulhamit Kırmızı's 2022 article "The Drunken Officials of Abdülhamid II: Alcohol Consumption in the Late Ottoman Bureaucracy" (https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/17780)!

Another sketch about Abdul Hamid II by Paul d'Espagnat in "Le Sourire", this time from October 1908 - i.e. just a couple of months after the Young Turk Revolution! Abdul Hamid II states: "Oxygénée Cusenier, dear Sir, a pure marvel! In the three months that I have been taking it, it has had such an effect on me that from an Old Turk, I have become a Young Turk!"

Many of these sketches promise that women will be more attracted to a man who drinks "Oxygénée Cusenier". This one shows two Muslim men, smoking a water pipe. One of them says: "By Allah! my hundred and twenty wives have been crazy about me since I started drinking that delicious liqueur of the infidels: Oxygénée Cusenier."

The sketch thus combines Orientalist prejudice about Muslims with the alleged advantages of this specific absinthe - fascinating!

In this sketch, an officer informs the former Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II that all his possessions have been confiscated, to which Abdul Hamid II says "Will I at least be left with enough to take my Oxygénée Cusenier before each meal?" - and is satisfied when being told yes: "Then everything is fine. Allah is great."

Amazing.

Due to my focus on the Muslim world, I am particularly interested in how Muslims were depicted in these "Oxygénée Cusenier" sketches. This one, by the French artist Paul d'Espagnat, shows a conversation between Abdul Hamid II & and an officer, a month after the former's deposition in April 1909.

In 1906, the French artist A. Bertrand had already published a sketch about the absinthe brand "Oxygénée Cusenier" & the discovery of the North Pole in the same journal, which had been achieved, allegedly, "thanks to - you guessed it - the benevolence of Oxygénée Cusenier".

Just one week later, Maurice Radiguet produced this gruesome sketch for "Le Sourire" - with the title "Civilisation in Morocco"... It shows a scene in precolonial Morocco, with the caption saying, in French: "Allah be praised! Yielding to the remonstrances of European diplomats, Sultan Moulay-Hafid became more human. From now on, he leaves one hand to his captives so that they can take their glass of OXYGÉNÉE CUSENIER before each meal."

This is such a fascinating #ColonialAdvert by the company "Rivoire Frères" from 1924 (i.e. after the prohibition of absinthe), published in "L'Afrique du Nord illustrée". It shows a full list of their products, from "Vermouth Phocéa" to "Imperial Brandy" & "French Whiskey"!

The same figure of an older North African man in traditional clothes seems to be printed on a (lottery?) ticket attached to this bottle of "Hamoud" from 1939 - which is interesting, as I've not seen him depicted in other adverts for "Hamoud Boualem"!

In 1927, the same journal also published this advert for "Imperial Mandarine", showing just the bottle, but with the same intricate border! Amazing to compare this to the ones by Charles Brouty for the same brand from 1928!

https://historians.social/@drninastuder/113463956696033705