Cigarette card for the week ending
Saturday, 17 July 2004
Cléo De Mérode (1873-1966)
Parisian danseuse
Cléo De Mérode
(photo: Reutlinger, Paris, circa 1895)
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This real photograph cigarette card, featuring a portrait of Cléo De Mérode, was published in England by the makers of Ogden's Guinea Gold cigarettes about 1900. * * * * * * * * Cléo De Mérode began her career as a child. She went on to become a well known dancer, appearing in Paris, where for the 1900 Exposition she performed a number of new dances at the Capucines and Théâtre Cambodgien; she also travelled to New York, Hamburg, Berlin, St. Petersburg and London. Mlle. De Mérode was as celebrated for her art as she was for her beauty and collection of diamond jewellery.
'Cléo de Mérode commenced her career in the corps de ballet at the Paris Opera, where she was seen by the manager of the Folies Bergère, Marchand. She took the leading role in a ballet-pantomime entitled Lorenza which made her name. Her liaison with Leopold II of Belgium earned him the sobriquet "Cleopold" throughout Paris. In the 1950s she emerged from retirement to sue Simone de Beauvior for having referred to her as "that great Hetaera" in her book, The Second Sex. She was awarded one franc as damages.' |
Cléo De Mérode
left, La Danse Cambodgienne; right, Phryne, Danse Greque
(photos: Reutlinger, Paris, circa 1900)
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'An engagement of special interest has been made by the Alhambra Theatre Company is that of Mlle. Cléo de Mérode, who will make her first appearance in England at the Alhambra on Monday evening, June 2. For her series of twelve representations at the Alhambra, Mlle. de Mérode is bringing a repertoire of six national dances, namely: Gavotte, Danse Directoire; Esmeralda, Danse Bohemienne; Phryne, Danse Greque; Habansia, Danse Espangnol; La Danse Cambodgienne, and the Fandango. In connection with the Cambodgienne, it may be noted that the famous danseuse based this creation upon the national dance of the Annamites, a company of whom visited Paris some years ago.'
'On Monday evening [2 June 1902, the day after the announcement in London of the end of the Boer War] every place of amusement was filled with a seething crowd full of patriotism, not to mention other tings. In the promenade of the Empire [Leicester Square] they sang "God Save the King" at the interval, and in the big saloon upstairs youths made patriotic speeches from chairs, and dodged the big man in a cavalry frock coat, and the Bobby on duty, when they tried to catch them to expel them. At the Alhambra [Leicester Square] the crowd was as great and as patriotic, and "The Soldiers of the Queen," revived for the occasion, went with a roar. It was rather hard lines on Mdlle. Cléo de Mérode, who is a quite charming and beautiful lady, with bandeaux of hair over her ears, that her first appearance should be made on such a roaring night, for her art is very gentle, deliberate, and refined, and what the house really wanted on that particular night were patriotic songs and banner. Mdlle. de Mérode is a capable mime, as every dance trained for the Paris Opera House is, and poses very gracefully, and her succession of dances of various countries and periods are delicately delightful; but the house could not refrain from laughter when, in a languorous dance of ancient Greece, Mdlle. de Mérode put a double pipe to her mouth, and from the gallery came the exact reproduction of the squeal of a bagpipe.'
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© John Culme, 2004