195.00 USD
Rare and wonderful, original cabinet card photograph from the studio of Leopold Reutlinger of Paris. This gorgeous piece of Belle Epoque history measures approx. 6 and 1/2 by 4 and 1/4 inches and is in lovely condition.
Both Mlle. d'Alençon and Mlle. Lise Fleuron, a contemporary of hers, posed for Leopold Reutlinger in this same costume and the postcard images from those sessions were wonderful, but if there is a postcard print of this particular photograph, in full costume and from this angle, we haven't seen it.
Emilienne d'Alençon was a popular Parisian dancer of la Belle Epoque, one of "Les Grandes Trois" The Three Great Ones, also affectionately referred to by the people of France at that time as Les Grandes Horizontales, The Grand Horizontals! :) The other two performers so named were Caroline "La Belle" Otero and Liane de Pougy. All three were women who not only rose to great fame, but who also accumulated immense wealth as mistresses to scions of Industry and members of European royalty. All three rose from very humble backgrounds to rub elbows with the elite of French society, and that feat made them heroes to the people of France who no doubt viewed their brash success as proof of the egalitarian nature of France, and perhaps expressing the essential quality of "joie de vivre!"
Born Émilie André, in 1869 Paris, Mlle. d'Alençon began her career when she was fifteen years old. She performed a trained rabbit act (the rabbits were dyed pink), and also worked as a ballerina. As a courtesan, she was very successful, being maintained in style for a time, by King Leopold II of Belgium, among others.
According to the very entertaining blog montmartre-secret.com (http://www.montmartre-secret.com/2019/01/emilienne-d-alencon.html), she was given her stage name by one "Laure de Chiffreville, a notorious prostitute,", while wearing a bodice of Alençon lace to a get together at the apartment of journalist Charles Desteuque.
She retired from the stage in 1906, but continued to live the high life, enjoying the magnificent wealth showered upon her.
According to Wikipedia France, by 1931, her fortune exhausted, Mlle. d'Alençon was forced to sell off her most valued possessions.
She passed away shortly after WWII, in 1946, and was laid to rest where she was born, in Paris.