39 Photographs.
Bernhardt, Sarah. Photographs by Nadar and others. 1862-[ ].
4 x 5 ¾ inches, mounted on printed cards 4 ½ x 6 ½ inches.
Boxed together with:
2 ¼ x 3 ½ inches, mounted on printed cards 2 ½ x 4 ¼ inches.
A collection of 39 rare photographs of Sarah Bernhardt, many by Felix Nadar. Bernhardt posed for photographs as early as 1862. While her early photographs by Nadar are monuments to artistic composition, Bernhardt’s fame is due to the mass-produced albumen prints and Woodburytype photos in small carte d’visite and the larger cabinet form that carried her portrait around the world. This collection was assembled in France over the course of fifty year.
Sarah Bernhardt, “The Divine Sarah,” was born Henriette-Rosine Bernard in Paris, France in 1844. She spent her life gracing the theatrical stages of the world with her interpretations of both classic and modern French drama. Following her education at the drama school of the Paris Conservatoire, Bernhardt made her theatrical debut on stage in an 1862 production of Racine’s Iphigenie en Aulide. But it was not until her 1872 performance in Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas that she was recognized and established as a great theatrical actress of her time. Thereafter, at home and in a long series of tours throughout Europe and America, Bernhardt delighted audiences with her interpretations of characters in productions such as Adirenne Lecouvreur, Frou Frou, Hernani, Jeanne D’Arc, Phedre, and Theodora, to name her most beloved roles.
Bernhardt’s popularity was facilitated in part by the development of photography (in other parts by her beauty and acting abilities). It was not until the development of the albumen paper process in the late 1850s, replacing the cumbersome daguerreotypes, that photographs could be widely reproduced. In the late 1860s a reproduction process called the Woodburytype, named after its English inventor Walter Bentley Woodbury, created a faster reproduced image that was very true to the original and highly luminous. This evolution of rapidly reproduced photographic portraits spawned an industry such as the world had never seen before, entirely replacing both lithography and wood engravings by the 1890s.
The photographs are detailed below:
1. Adrienne Lecouvreur
Eugène Scribe (1791-1861)
First performed in London in 1880, at the Gaiety Theatre, after Bernhardt had left the Comédie Française, when she was asked to come to London with her own company. The play was so enormously successful that even the French critics praised her, and begged her to come back to the Comédie Française. Bernhardt carried Adrienne Lecouvreur all over the world.
Adrienne Lecouvreur, written in 1849 with the collaboration of Gabriel-Jean-Baptiste Legouvé, fictionalized the circumstances surrounding the death of Adrienne Lecouvreur, a famous actress who in 1730 apparently committed suicide because her lover, Maurice de Saxe, had deserted her for the Princess de Bouillon.
Adrienne Lecouvreur opened November 8th, 1880, the first play Bernhardt presented when she came to New York. New Yorkers, who had heard rumors from Paris of Bernhardt’s scandalous behavior, came to see Sarah out of sheer curiosity.
Audiences had to wait until the second act to see Sarah, since Adrienne Lecouvreur broke dramatic convention by leaving the main character out of the first act. Bernhardt captivated New York audiences. She revived Adrienne Lecouvreur in London in 1905, and in Paris in 1907.
2. Dame aux Camélias
Alexandre Dumas (1824-1895)
La Dame aux Camélias was Bernhardt’s box-office standby for nearly 45 years. Bernhardt approached the role with a simplicity that deeply touched the audience, moving them to tears. Overall, she played Dumas’ frail heroine over 3,000 times. “Camille” as it has come to be called,
was the play most often acted on Bernhardt’s American tour, for a total of 156 performances. During her last 1880 tour performance, there were 17 cur
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