*ACTRESS MARIE WAINWRIGHT BEAUTIFUL 1884 SARONY COSTUME CABINET PHOTO*

Description

A rare original Napoleon Sarony cabinet photo circa 1884 of the great American actress Marie Wainwright in costume as Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Marie Wainwright was for a time Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett's leading lady. Light wear otherwise good. An amazing early theatrical image! See Marie Wainwright's extraordinary biography below.
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From Wikipedia:
Marie Wainwright
(May 8, 1853 - August 17, 1923) was an American stage and sometimes screen actress.
[4]
She achieved the bulk of her fame on the Victorian stage. Her parents were Commodore J.M. Wainwright and Maria Wainwright (
nee Page
).
[5]
[6]
She was educated in France and made her first stage appearance in 1877 in Romeo and Juliet. She later was leading lady for
Edwin Booth
,
Lawrence Barrett
and
Tommaso Salvini
.
[7]
She acted in the classics and high drama until the turn of the century, then began appearing in more contemporary plays. Later in life she made an attempt at silent film acting, making just three films. She died in Scranton Pennsylvania in 1923.
Napoleon Sarony
(March 9, 1821 – November 9, 1896)
[1]
was an
American
lithographer
and
photographer
. He was a highly popular and great
portrait
photographer, most known for his portraits of the stars of late-19th-century American
theater
. His son,
Otto Sarony
, continued the family business as an accomplished theater and film star photographer.
Life
Sarony was born in
Quebec
in 1821 and moved to
New York City
around 1836. He worked as an illustrator for
Currier and Ives
before joining with
James Major
and starting his own lithography business, Sarony & Major, in 1843. In 1845, James Major was replaced by Henry B. Major in Sarony & Major and it continued operating under that name until 1853. From 1853 to 1857, the firm was known as Sarony and Company, and from 1857 to 1867, as Sarony, Major & Knapp. Sarony left the firm in 1867 and established a photography studio at 37
Union Square
, during a time when celebrity portraiture was a popular fad.
[2]
[3]
Photographers would pay their famous subjects to sit for them, and then retain full rights to sell the pictures. Sarony reportedly paid famed stage actress
Sarah Bernhardt
,500 to pose for his camera, the equivalent of more than ,000 today.
[3]
In 1894 he published his portfolio of prints titled, "Sarony's Living Pictures."
Associations
Included among the thousands of people that came into Sarony's world were many distinguished people, such as American Civil War General, William T. Sherman, and American authors
Samuel Clemens
(Mark Twain),
Lew Wallace
and
Oscar Wilde
.
William T. Sherman
In 1888, Sarony photographed
William T. Sherman
, three years before he died in 1891. Sarony's photograph would be used as a model for the engraving of the
first Sherman Postage stamp
.
[4]
Samuel Clemens; the Lotos, Salmagundi and Tile Clubs
Sarony took numerous photographs of
Samuel Clemens
(Mark Twain).
[3]
Clemens and Sarony were in the same social circles and shared many mutual acquaintances. They both belonged to the
Lotos Club
in New York City. Sarony helped in the founding of the
Salmagundi Club
, an association of artists, and was also a member of the Tile Club, whose members included well-known authors and journalists. In 1883, English author
Wilkie Collins
dedicated his anti-
vivisection
book
Heart and Science
to Sarony. In 1884, Sarony was a participant in an April Fool's joke played on Clemens when
George Washington Cable
arranged for 150 of Clemens's friends to write to him simultaneously, requesting his autograph. As part of the joke, no stamps or envelopes were to be provided for a reply.
Oscar Wilde
One of Sarony's portraits of writer Oscar Wilde became the subject of a
U.S. Supreme Court
case,
Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony
111 U.S. 53 (1884), in which the Court upheld the extension of
copyright
protection to photographs. Sarony sued Burrow-Giles after it used unauthorized lithographs of
Oscar Wilde No. 18
in an advertisement, and won a judgment for 0 (the modern equivalent of just over ,000) that was affirmed on
appeal
by the
Second Circuit Court of Appeals
and the Supreme Court. Sarony later photographed the Supreme Court itself, to celebrate the centennial of the federal judiciary in 1890.
[3]
[5]
Family
Sarony was married twice. His first wife died in 1858; his second, Louie, reportedly shared his tendency towards eccentricity and preference for outlandish dress. She rented elaborate costumes that she wore during her daily afternoon walk through
Washington Square
, wearing them once before returning them.
His brother,
Oliver François Xavier Sarony
, was also a portrait photographer, working primarily in England, and who died in 1879. Napoleon's son Otto (1859–1903) continued the family name for a few years until his own early death in 1903.
Sarony was buried in
Green-Wood Cemetery
in
Brooklyn
.
[3]