Edmond Guillaume created a striking series of prints which blames four ‘geniuses of death’ for the destruction of the Franco-Prussian War, starting with King of Prussia, Wilhelm I. The set was first published in Brussels, which had by the late 1860s emerged as a hotspot for the publishing of anti-Bonapartist sentiment. Alongside Bismarck, prints of Napoleon III, King of Prussia Wilhelm I and Pope Pius IX hauntingly memorialise their roles in the devastation. The four men are depicted as skeletons, menacing over the ruin they have caused.  

Brussels: printed by E. Cheval, [1870]