18.00 USD
Rose Caron (1857-1930), was an operatic soprano who made her debut in 1880 with great success. She enjoyed a long career, and at 47 years of age, made several recordings. We provide a link below to one. The sound quality is poor, but her voice is sweet and clear, and one can imagine how she sounded in her prime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7agu-nXMLY
Leopold Reutlinger made great use of his original images. Experimenting with new techniques, he took portraits he'd shot of artistes in the 1890s, which may have been produced as cartes de visite, or cabinet cards originally, and superimposed the original portrait onto decorative, Art Nouveau, sometimes quite surreal backgrounds he hoped would grab the public imagination at the time, and they did!
This card is a particularly fine example of one of his most beautiful Art Nouveau series, in which the pictured artistes are practically deified, which was a common thread running through theatrical portrait imagery of the time. The theatrical performer was magically transformed from an ordinary, though talented, human being, into a celestial goddess, woodland nymph, etc. We have to remember that photography was still a relatively new medium, and at the time this postcard was published, the "real photo" picture postcard was newer still, practically in its first decade of existence. This would have made images like this one seem truly magical to the everyday, uninitiated person!
Mlle. Caron was probably (or, at least appears to have been), still in her twenties or thirties at the time the original image used for this card was taken, but was close to 50 years old when this series was published, so it would seem Monsieur Reutlinger was getting some definite mileage out of his original portrait photograph :). At that time, many performers closely controlled production and sales of their postcard images, drawing sometimes considerable wealth from them in the process. Cleo de Merode, famed interpretive dancer and Belle Epoque postcard queen, was one of these canny business women. We don't know at this time whether or not Mlle. Caron received any additional income from these later Reutlinger montage images, but then, as now, any (or at least most) publicity, was good publicity.
Gorgeous card, in very nice, unposted condition, with minor foxing on the reverse side of the card and slight rounding of the corners.
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