Cléopatre de Mérode (1873-1966) -
Surely A Figure Larger Than Life
Cléopatre or Cléo de Mérode was someone who, for me at least, has slipped through the cracks in history ... I'd never ever heard the slightest whisper of her name.
As I read more and more about her yesterday, the more and more intrigued I became.
This descendant of an Austrian-French noble family was to become one of the greatest Parisian beauties of the Edwardian Era ...
... a ballerina - a lead dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet no less ...
... the subject of innumerable works of art, both paintings and prints ...
Cléo de Mérode by Georges Jules Victor Clairin
Cléo de Mérode by Alfredo Mȕller
... and sculpture ...
Cléo de Mérode by Alexandre Falguiere
... and, at the age of 94, photography ...
Cléo de Mérode at 94 in 1964 by Cecil Beaton
... and last but not least a lover of King Leopold II of Belgium ...
... publically pilloried in cartoons ...
... though falsely named!
Now this sounds like a life lived full and big, no nonsense at all.
So when I came across the tiniest of fragments of film of her dancing ... I was gob smacked to experience so very little impact. Even taking into account the inexpertness of performers of all kinds to exploit the new medium.
Almost the very essence of droopy knickers.
Hard to fathom!
Filmed in old age, La Goulue (Louise Weber), the great can can dancer and absolute star of Le Moulin Rouge (and favoured subject of Henri Toulouse-Lactrec) easily showed more than the dying glimmers of the powerful magnetic stage persona and performance on which her fame rested.
So for Cléo de Mérode, what's the explanation guys?
Watching La Goulue recreate a bit of her youth is so touching, so tender (if I may use the word). The fact of her size at the time of the filming means she's under no illusion that it's all in the past, yet she takes such delight in the remembering...there's a delicious novel there, just waiting to be written.
ReplyDeleteCleo de Merode is totally new to me. What a marvelous life she must have led! I especially like the 2nd photo. What a exquisite face, what a wary expression. That era was such a remarkable time in which to live (assuming, of course, one was not a worker, struggling to merely survive.)
Speaking of which, Count Harry Kessler's diaries--1880-1918--are now published in English. The third entry: "Ems June 20, 1889. Sunday. This morning the emperor comes on the promenade and speaks to Mama.:" (Mama being one of the reigning beauties of the age. Kessler in his youth wasn't far behind her.) What a vastly different world it was...
hi paul
ReplyDeleteyes, it's the delight of remembering things past, to corrupt Proust, just a little. i made an extended video about her life, from her early nude modelling and modelling for Toulouse-Lautrec though her Moulin Rouge days and on to video of her sprooking her tent show and an interview on French television with her grand-daughter. it would be the novel people would declare was quite implausible, don't you think?!
about Cleo, there were so many wonderful photos to choose. what i found unusual is that she seems such a modern type of beauty, almost as though photographed today in period costume
speaking of Count Harry Kessler, i just checked on Amazon after you mention him and found 'Berlin in Lights: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler (1918-1937)' - the second part of the diaries. curiously in middle age he reminds me of Edward Elgar, don't you think?
a very different world ... which i'd love to visit once my time machine is back in service!
Many thanks for this post -- wonderful! Clarin also painted many portraits of Bernhardt...
ReplyDeletehi bob
ReplyDeleteyes, the Clairin is a wonderfully Edwardian painting - she is in a sense the very epitome of the confidence of empire imagined at its zenith
i must look out his portraits of Bernhardt - thanks for nudging me in that direction