![]()
22.00 USD
Here at Red Poulaine, we have a special place in our hearts for the Italian actress images of the early 1900s and into the 1920s. The quality of the portrait photography and subsequent postcard publication was particularly rich, with a flair for the dramatic and mysterious. Many of our favorites, like Anna Fougez and Nella Regini, began their careers as sciantose, a variation on the French term chanteuse, meaning female singer, but bringing to it other meanings, and implying a dark, mysterious, exotic quality that appealed to the theater going public at the time, and certainly appeals to us :) Naturally we love all of our images or we probably wouldn't purchase them for our shop, and feel an almost filial affection for the performers onto whom we project imagined personalities and traits (is that weird? :), but there is something about what seems to have been at the time a very Italian penchant for carrying the illusion of the stage and screen out into the public venue, a tendency to make even larger, the already "larger than life" persona of the theatrical personality, that we really love. So we have decided to open a new section devoted exclusively to these Italian artistes. We call it "La Bella Donna," and yes it is a bit of a play on words, given the tendency in many of these cards to focus on the "Femme Fatale." We hope you will enjoy these images as much as we do.
This image, depicting her grand death scene in "Messalina," is a very important one in the history of Italian silent film, particularly from Signora de Liguoro's point of view. See the bloody dagger at the base of the image! Grisly! This costume was very precious to the actress. More about this below.
Also, it appears from some stills we've seen of this film, that this was a suicide scene. In the histories, however, the empress was offered the dagger, and the option of suicide, but declined, and was stabbed to death by her executioner.
Historically, The Roman empress Messalina (wife of the Emperor Claudius) is usually depicted as a scheming, morally bankrupt, sexually voracious villain, so one can only imagine that la Signora de Liguoro had great fun with the role! In reality, the old Roman historians who told the story of Messalina's reign, were writing about her decades after her death, in a political climate that was hostile to the royal family with whom she was associated, and as Wikipedia points out in its article, the attribution of morally corrupt acts, and sexual exploits in particular, was (and still is today, for that matter) a common smear tactic used by political enemies to blacken the names of their rivals. We're not suggesting she was Florence Nightingale, but probably unfairly maligned, just the same.
Speaking of Florence, Rina De Liguoro was born there, in 1892. She is sometimes known as the last of Italy's great silent movie stars. She began her stage career as a concert pianist, and then began acting in film in the late teens. In 1922, she starred as the Empress Messalina in "Messalina, Fall of an Empress" This was apparently the turning point in her career.
Through the 20s, she made several successful films, then moved to Hollywood, but the age of the silents was over, and she won only small supporting roles. She was often billed as the Countess De Liguoro, which was appropriate enough, since her husband was a count!
She returned to Italy in the late 30s, rekindled her career as a pianist while occasionally performing relatively small parts in film. She passed away in Rome, in 1966, and was buried in the costume she wore in her first big film, "Messalina," which is a pretty romantic touch, we think :) Yes, the woman in this image wore the costume she is wearing here, to her grave!
We have a card in our shop autographed by the Countess, from the same important film! Link below.
https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/redpoulaine/tools/listings/query:autographed,section:13678303/126586190
Also, if you follow the below link to Youtube, you can see a couple of short clips from the actual film, wedged in between what seems to be a late 1940s beauty/talent search. The few moments of la Signora are really wonderful though. Don't miss them :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yuPKIsX0SU
Please examine our high res scans for detail.
Postage is for first class shipping in a secure photo mailer, and we happily combine shipping on all paper goods. If you purchase two cards, we will refund the postage on the second card, and when you purchase three or more cards from us at the same time, your shipping will be entirely free, except for international orders which, because of sudden increases in international shipping rates will still be charged one card's shipping fees on orders of three or more.
And please come visit our blog at:
redpoulaine.blogspot.com
where we post biographical and historical tidbits, images of cards and photographs for sale, some already sold but remembered fondly, related images of historical interest and sometimes even images of items that have not yet arrived in the shop, but that are expected to arrive soon, as well as coupon codes, links to other related sites, and more!
