Skinny, homely man wearing a wig, pearls and a flowered tutu posing as a ballerina with arms in fifth position. The card is a spoof of the celebrated dancer and demimondaine Cléo de Mérode (1875–1966). A doggerel verse printed in red on the recto refers to the dancer’s charms as designed to “captiver un prince.” Addressed, stamped and postmarked on verso.
Cite As:
Postcards of female and male impersonators and cross-dressing, #7778. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
This image is believed to be in the public domain in the United States by virtue of publication date, and is presented by Cornell University Library under the Guidelines for Using Text, Images, Audio, and Video from Cornell University Library Collections, http://hdl.handle.net/1813.001/CULCopyright. This collection was digitized by Cornell University Library in 2019 from materials held in the Rare and Manuscript Collections, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Professor Durba Ghosh and Brenda Marston, Curator of the Human Sexuality Collection. For more information about this image, please contact the Rare and Manuscript Collections at rareref@cornell.edu. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.
