silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper
Dimensions:
H x W (Image): 7 11/16 × 9 5/8 in. (19.5 × 24.5 cm)
H x W (Sheet): 8 1/16 × 10 in. (20.5 × 25.4 cm)
Type:
gelatin silver prints
portraits
Place captured:
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, North and Central America
Date:
early 20th-mid 20th century
Description:
A silver gelatin print depicting a black-and-white image of five (5) performing showgirls. Each is depicted in a slightly different dance pose, caught mid-routine. The women are wearing identical costumes with short, medium-toned skirts and white bodices with beaded embellishments that decorate the front of the bodice. They each wear halo-style headdresses with sweetheart shaped front brims, decorated with feather plumes and beaded embellishments on the brim. Each dancer also wears arm-length fingerless gloves, also detailed with beading. The five (5) women dance in the foreground and mid-ground with musicians behind bandstands and audience members behind the dancers in the background. Laura Cathrell is the dancer in the right foreground and Birdie Warfield Edison is at the center. A painted wall mural in the far background depicts five (5) dancing women and one (1) kneeling man. Painted on a ceiling beam in the upper left corner of the image is block text that reads, [ST-MICHEL], followed by an octave clef, an eighth note, a sixteenth note, and a thirty-second note to the right of the text. There are no inscriptions on the front or back of the photograph.
