Actress Rosa Csillag in the role of Orpheus
Original Language TitleL'Actrice Rosa Csillag dan le Role d'Orphee
Artist
Camille Silvy
(French, 1834 - 1910)
Date1860
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 9 3/16 × 7 5/8 inches (23.34 × 19.38 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2015.50.37
Signednone
Inscribednone
MarkingsOn image recto, upper left, on negative, reversed: "No 3"
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionImage of a woman standing in a studio next to a broken column with a scenic mural in the background; she has a sword tucked into her waistband and holds a lyre in her left hand.Exhibition HistoryRotation 22. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, August 10, 2016 – January 8, 2017, no cat.
Posing against a painted backdrop, the costumed Rosa Csillag (1832–1892) enacts her role as ancient Greek mythological character Orpheus from the opera Orfeo ed Euridice. While Orpheus is male, in the opera, the role was often performed by women. Details from Camille Silvy’s studio, such as large windows and a painted backdrop with its edges visible, reveal the studio’s carefully constructed artifice. Such details would have been cropped out before the final images were sold to the public or used by the performer for self-promotion.
Sold by Marc and Brigitte Pagneux through Pierre Berge, Paris;
Purchased from Une Historie Particulière De La Photographie, Pierre Berge, Paris, March 19, 1025, lot 189 by Vintage Works, Ltd., Chalfont, PA, 2015;
Purchased from Vintage Works, Ltd., Chalfont, PA by The Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2015;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2015.
Purchased from Une Historie Particulière De La Photographie, Pierre Berge, Paris, March 19, 1025, lot 189 by Vintage Works, Ltd., Chalfont, PA, 2015;
Purchased from Vintage Works, Ltd., Chalfont, PA by The Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2015;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2015.
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Camille Silvy
ca. 1859
2008.25.21
André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri
1864
2024.12.1
