Artist: Leonetto Cappiello Italian (1875-1942)
Title: Mme. Sarah Bernhardt
Plate: CC.01
Original lithograph from "Les Contemporains Celebres".
Printed by Publications Octave Beauchamp
& G. de Malherbe, Paris, 1904.
Also includes: Signed (in the plate) testimonial including celebrity photo and background design by Manuel Orazi, French (1860-1934) plus original biography.
Both presented in 16 x 20 in. acid free, archival museum mats, with framing labels. Ready to frame. Shipped boxed flat via Fedex.
Certificate of Authenticity.
Sheet Size: 10 in x 12 3/4 in 25.2 cm x 32.4 cm
Price: $325.00 Saleroom price. Reg $650
"Nicknamed "The Divine Sarah" by the legendary playwright, Oscar Wilde, Bernhardt was the undisputed queen of French romantic and classical tragedy."
Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923). One of the theater's greatest talents, French actress Sarah Bernhardt was also one of its most colorful personalities. Few performers ever moved audiences as Bernhardt did, or succeeded in such a wide variety of roles. None provoked more controversy. This exceedingly slender woman with a strikingly attractive face traveled with, and sometimes slept in, a coffin lined with letters from her innumerable lovers. And her entourage often included a veritable menagerie of dogs, cats, birds, turtles, monkeys, leopards, lions, and alligators. Men fought duels to the death for her, priests exhorted parishioners to shun her, and at least one woman killed herself because she couldn't get a ticket to a Bernhardt performance. Critic Jules Lemaitre once said of Bernhardt, "She could enter a convent, discover the North Pole, have herself inoculated with rabies, assassinate an emperor or marry a Negro king without astonishing me." (www.trivia-library.com)
"Les Contemporains Celebres, was published by Lefrevre-Utile (famed Biscuit producer) containing portraits...some of Cappiello's finest caricatures of contemporary celebrities" (Rennert, PAI-XXXVI, 584)
"Published by Lefevre-Utile and Octave Beauchamp, Paris, and distributed by G. de Malherbe, containing portraits, biographies, signed testimonials and some of Cappiello's finest caricatures of contemporary celebrities. You might be asking yourself just what do Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Rejane, Granier, Massenet, Bartholdi and the Queen of Madagascar have in common? The answer is quite simple: They all love Lefevre-Utile biscuits, of course" (Rennert, PAI-XL, 252)