Welcome to Red Poulaine's Musings. Here we hope to entertain and delight you with stories about the people and times from bygone eras and the vintage images that act as our windows into their times.
Red Poulaine is a husband and wife joint enterprise on Etsy. We take pride in offering fine, interesting vintage items to our customers, while providing the best customer service possible. Please come visit us at http://www.etsy.com/shop/redpoulaine today.
Today, Red Poulaine is unveiling the Songs of Salome Collection. This stunning ensemble brings together a choice assortment of luscious vintage postcards featuring Art Nouveau headdresses, jewelry, and costumes, with a special emphasis on the depiction of dangerous female seductresses and dancers, of whom Salome is a prime example.
The 1904 Richard Straussopera Salome, itself based on a German translation of the 1891 Oscar Wilde play, Salomé (written in French to side-step British censorship), has been identified, along with French colonial interests in Africa and Asia, as one possible influence in the development of the oriental dance costume of La Belle Époque.
We here at Red Poulaine have worked very hard to find the most stunning vintage images we can, often spending many hours on any given day in this search. The temptation to hoard the most beautiful images for ourselves was actually the start of this collection, but we find our need to share these images overwhelms that impulse. Lucky you! Because this means that we are opening up a collection that, although small, may just be the most concentrated grouping of Art Nouveau femme fatales inspired by the opera Salome currently available.
And now, for the first time all together on one stage, and with no further ado, we bring you: the Songs of Salome.
Pierrot's origins can be found in the Commedia dell'Arte, a 16th century theatrical movement of traveling players who performed (often with favorite "stock" characters) on temporary open air stages. The tragic opera Pagliacci(trans. players or clowns), by Ruggero Leoncavallo, premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on May 21, 1892. It is a tale of travelling players and features a romantic triangle with a Pierrot-like clown, who betrayed by his wife and a Harlequin-like fellow performer resorts to murder.
For a real treat, check out this performance of what is probably the most well known aria in Pagliacci, "Vesti la giubba," sung by Luciano Pavarotti, one of the great tenors of our time.
It was probably in the late 17th century that an Italian troupe known as Comedie-Italienne, while performing in Paris, first introduced Pierrot to the French public.
Pierrot is often depicted as the sad clown, the ever trusting innocent, the sweet-natured soul, whose lover Colombine (sometimes called Colombinette or Colombina) betrays him with the wily Harlequin. But, with the popularity of pantomime, he often stood alone on the stage trying oh, so very hard to express his experience of life, without the words to do so.
SOLD Pierrot and Colombinette asleep on a crescent moon
By the late 1880s, with the dawning of la Belle Époque, Pierrot was to meet a new friend, Pierrette, who would vie with Colombine for his affections.
SOLD Lily Damita, in a Pierrette-like costume
Pierrot's image was a favorite of Jules Chéret, possibly the most successful commercial artist of the period. In the Fine Arts, the Impressionists, and Post-Impressionists were inspired by Pierrot.
It is not at all unusual to find wonderful photos and RPPCs (Real Photo Post Cards) of couples at Carnival, or fêtes, dressed as Pierrot and his ensemble. Sometimes, even whole families get into the act.
SOLD Pierrot plays the mandolin for his Colombine
SOLD Pierrot and family at a fête
Publishers of French postcards made successful use of Pierrot to create romantic, silly, and sometimes mysterious images to please the picture postcard buying public.
SOLD "Croissants de Lune"
We are so very fond of Pierrot, here at Red Poulaine, that he shares a section in our shop with another favorite of ours, Mignon. But, fair warning, when you find him in stock, if you are a collector, better grab him quickly, because he is a very popular character and, like the traveling players from whom he is descended, seldom stays long in one place.
.jpg)
