A cabinet card of Sarah Bernhardt in the role that established her fame, Doña Maria de Neubourg, Queen of Spain, in Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas, from the negative by Étienne Carjat and printed by Goupil. The verso carries a printed program for her own touring company, circa 1881, giving the full casts of La Dame aux Camélias and Hernani.

Bernhardt is seated in profile to the right, a small pearl crown set high on her curled hair and a strand of pearls crossing her brow. A pearl drop hangs at her ear, a standing lace collar rises behind her neck, and rope upon rope of pearls falls over the bodice. The pale figured gown is barred down the sleeve with rows of pearl frogging and swagged across the skirt with more. With both hands she lifts the lid of a small casket on a draped table. Behind it stand an ornate metal lamp surmounted by a crown and cross and a cabinet set with an oval medallion, with a carved chair back at left.

Bernhardt (1844-1923) played the Queen in the 1872 revival of Ruy Blas at the Odéon, a success that returned her to the Comédie-Française, where she triumphed as Doña Sol in Hernani in 1877. In 1880 she resigned, formed her own company and began the international tours that carried her name across Europe and America. La Dame aux Camélias entered her repertoire on the American tour that opened in November 1880, and both plays named on the verso were staples of those first independent seasons. Carjat (1828-1906), caricaturist, journalist and photographer, is remembered for his portraits of Baudelaire and Rimbaud.

The mount is printed in red within a ruled border: SARAH BERNHARDT, Photog. Goupil., Cliché Carjat. The verso is headed “Représentations de Mlle Sarah Bernhardt” and bills her as Marguerite Gautier opposite Angelo as Armand Duval, and as Doña Sol opposite Paul Mounet as Hernani, with the supporting casts in full. Printer’s line: Imp. A. Thomas et Cie, rue de la Paix, 11.