Box 1

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Costumes de la Maison Granier. The two cards offered here represent Poilu's Park, an amusement park for French and allied soldiers that operated from 1915 to 1916 in Commercy.

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Performer dressed as an 18th-century male aristocrat in a beribboned outfit and an enormous feathered cavalier hat. Inscription at upper left on the photo indicates that Mlle. Chavarny appeared at La Scala, a music hall in the 10th arrondissement of Paris open from 1874 to 1936 where many of the grand stars of the era appeared. Addressed to Isabelle Garon; signature of sender illegible.

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Inscription: "Addressed to Clara (?) Boissier. inscription at upper right on the recto indicates that Mlle. Declos and Mlle. Gaity appeared at La Cigale, a music hall on the Place Pigalle in Paris that opened in 1887.

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Inscription: "Addressed to Isabelle Garon; signature of sender illegible." Performer dressed as an 18th-century male aristocrat. Inscription at upper left on the photo indicates that Mlle. Defrance appeared at La Scala, a music hall in the 10th arrondissement of Paris open from 1874 to 1936 where many of the grand stars of the era appeared.

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Addressed to Rose Bounias; brief message on recto signed P. Paul. Actress dressed as a 17th-century cavalier, likely in the role of one of the brothers in a production of Jacques Offenbach's opera-bouffe Barbe-Bleue (1866).

Scope and Contents From the Item:

Stage and silent-film actor Clara Faurens appearing at the Theatre de la'Odeon (Paris) in the role of Pierrot, the commedia della arte stock figure of the lovesick clown. Inscribed verso: Brief note to Jeanne Gorno signed E. Hacquet.

COLLECTION DESCRIPTION From the Collection: Postcards portraying cross-dressing and female and male impersonators in France, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Italy, and Romania. Postcards include photographic and photomechanical prints, some hand-colored. All are printed between circa 1900 and 1930 and depict performers on amateur, café-concert, music-hall, and legitimate stages at the high-point of cross-dressing as a form of entertainment. Many depict gallant visual narratives of...

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Postcard of four women: three dressed as 17th-century musketeers and one dressed as a male gardener wearing a work apron and heavy clogs and holding a rake. The two women at the center are the same one who appear in the "Couple in Fancy Dress" postcard, and they are standing in the same garden.

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Postcard showing six women posing in front of the entry to a brick building. Three are dressed in the simple outfits of working women, including one wearing a long white apron; the other three are male impersonators dressed as a gendarme in uniform; a judge in robe, collar and chapeau; and one in a frock coat and fedora.

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Postcard showing nine men posing in front of an open touring car on an estate with trees and buildings in the background. The man at the center is dressed as a grand society woman in a travel outfit including a heavy coat, flowered hat, fur muff and pocketbook. The men surrounding her are dressed in various costumes, including one likely as a chauffer, one as a butler with feather duster, one with a crêpe-de-chine false beard, and others in worker's coats and caps.