100 Women of the American Stage on One CDV

[Women]: [Theater]:

[Cartes-de-Visite Photographic Collage Picturing a Hundred Women of the 19th-Century American Stage].

[New York]: C.D. Fredricks & Co. Theatrical Portrait Gallery No. 2, [ca. 1880s]. Cartes-de-visite photograph, 3.5 x 2.25 inches, on a slightly larger studio mount. Minor wear and dust-soiling. Very good. Item #12946

A charming photocollage incorporating tiny headshots of a hundred women of the American theater in the late-19th century into one CDV. Each portrait is numbered, corresponding to a printed list of the names of each of the 100 women on the verso of the photograph. Taking her rightful place near the center of the photograph, and pictured larger than everyone else, is Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876), an international force on the stage, and considered the finest American actress of her age. The image was produced by the New York photographic firm belonging to Charles DeForrest Fredricks, a legendary world-hopping photographer with a fascinating story all his own, to be told on another day. The photocollage was likely compiled from the legion of portraits Fredricks' studio produced for Broadway actresses over the course of more than twenty years after establishing his New York studio in 1855.

Price: $450