Mariia Mariusovna Petipa

[rg]

these two recently acquired photo-cards of M. M. Petipa have no dating or captioning beyond indication of the name PETIPA.

i guess one can assume the one w/ the spanish comb shows Marie costumed for a role in some spanish-theme ballet.

the one w/ the toque and distinctive sleeves might show her as costumed for the czardas in COPPELIA which the russian language RUSSIAN BALLET ENCYCLOPEDIA lists as an early role of hers.

this form of souvenir photography was prominent during the 1870s and '80s - by the '90s photo postcards became more prominent.

[bart]

I was a bit confused about the term carte de visite, always having assumed (based on 19th century English fiction) that this term referred only to name cards which were left by society women as they made their calls. Turning down one or another corner of the card apparently had some sort of significance.

Your use of the term here, rg, got me curious. I Googled and found this "brief history" of the carte de visite, from the American Museum of Photography: http://www.photographymuseum.com/histsw.htm

Thanks for adding once again to my education.

[leonid17]

these two recently acquired photo-cards of M. M. Petipa have no dating or captioning beyond indication of the name PETIPA.

i guess one can assume the one w/ the spanish comb shows Marie costumed for a role in some spanish-theme ballet.

the one w/ the toque and distinctive sleeves might show her as costumed for the czardas in COPPELIA which the russian language RUSSIAN BALLET ENCYCLOPEDIA lists as an early role of hers.

this form of souvenir photography was prominent during the 1870s and '80s - by the '90s photo postcards became more prominent.

Could the photograph on the right in fact be M.S. Petipa as the costume is identical to one worn by Mathilda Madaeva (see page 120 of Beaumont's History of Russian Ballet) who was active 1861-1878 and Coppelia was not staged in St. Petersburg until 1884?

I have edited this post as I had retired for the night after having struggled to place the other costume and suddenly remembered that the photograph on the left shows MMP in Paquita costume to be compared with Anna Pavlova in an identical costume but a different hair style. I could have waited for the morning to add this but I am always conscious of the time difference from London and New York for instance.

[rg]

i don't have, by any means, a complete list of MMP's roles but the selected listing in the RUSSIAN BALLET ENCYC doesn't note Paquita.

also from what i can tell MSP had thinner lips and a smaller chin than the 'petipa' in the second cdv posted above. still i can't certainly state the identities of the sitters shown here.

meanwhile here are two more cdv examples.

the card on the left is virginia zucchi as Paquita (or so ivor guest's book on zucchi would seem to indicate - and the other is MSP when she guested in paris).

[rg]

in the current arrangement of things, this link should lead to a previous BT thread on MSP.

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=21665

[leonid17]

i don't have, by any means, a complete list of MMP's roles but the selected listing in the RUSSIAN BALLET ENCYC doesn't note Paquita.

also from what i can tell MSP had thinner lips and a smaller chin than the 'petipa' in the second cdv posted above. still i can't certainly state the identities of the sitters shown here.

meanwhile here are two more cdv examples.

the card on the left is virginia zucchi as Paquita (or so ivor guest's book on zucchi would seem to indicate - and the other is MSP when she guested in paris).

I did not mean the title role, I was thinking of the costume Anna Pavlova wore as a soloist in the ballet 'Paquita' as a means of identifying the MM role. It is difficult with some dancers in period photographs to tell one from another. However one might be able to divine who the dancers is, by comparing Madaeva's

roles with other dancers of a similar era and see who concides, then eliminate who it obviously is not.

[rg]

as bad luck would have it, my copy of beaumont's 'history of ballet in russia' has most of the illustrations razored out from its pages. certainly the one opp. p. 120 is missing along with most others noted in the list of illustrations. sigh.

so, once more, my undated/unidentified photocards, etc. will remain more mysteries than histories.