18.00 USD
Wonderful! Great colors, charming Belle Epoque choker, long, long hair, and a fringe-edged wrap around shift. Our harpist's expression is one of deep, almost spiritual concentration. The harp is beautiful too, a "primitive" instrument. Its wound fiber strings, tightened with friction, rather than machine, pegs. and how about that carved ebony head-piece nestled in her shoulder? Very neat :)
We often wonder, when seeing the lutes, lyres, harps, etc., in these photographs, how the actual instruments figured in the acts. Of course this, like most of our images, is a "posed" photo, not "live," but, during the act itself, were they really played by the artiste, or did (in this case) the performer "mime" the playing of her instrument to an actual harpist's music in the theater orchestra?
We have, ourselves, built a few hand-made, and VERY primitive, stringed instruments, and although as musicians, we are anything but polished, we've sometimes managed to coax some pretty sweet melodies out of them. So it's not the tuneful-ness we question, but the volume. It's hard to imagine the harp our artiste caresses being loud enough for a performance in a music hall auditorium. On the other hand, before electric amplification, a theater needed to be built so that even muted sounds (like stage whispers), would reach the audience. Any thoughts? We'd love to hear from you.
Aristophot Ltd. (AL), was the British satellite of Aristophot AG of Saxony (a German kingdom, when our card was printed). Though its offices were in London, and many of its cards' images were of famous British performers, it's likely that all of the cards in its library were printed in Germany, which was, at that time, the arts and technology center of the vast postcard industry. Aristophot was a huge and influential publisher, but short-lived.
It was only in operation between around 1901 and 1909, when it was taken over by Albrecht and Meister (Amag), so that cards bearing the AL logo, are always easily dated to within that decade.
A wonderful card, with some minor edge and corner wear. 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!