So we've decided to change that. Your correspondents made inquiries of other collectors and historians and scoured their collections in a global search for throwout cards and related ephemera featuring prominent female conjurers. And we'll be featuring them during the month of May. So, stay tuned!
We'll be updating this list as the month goes on:
Mysterious Smith and Madam Olga
Dell O’Dell: Queen of Magic & Empress of Ephemera
Ru Xian: The Mysterious Card Thrower
Juliana Chen - World Champion Magician
And because we never miss the chance to highlight yet another bit of magic history, the poster above features Ionia, whose real name was Clementine de Vere (1888–1973), a British magician and illusionist also known as Clementine Weedon and Princess Clementine Eristavi Tchitcherine. Though we are unlikely to turn up a throwing card from her relatively short, though remarkable career, Ionia has left behind some beautiful lithographic magic posters. Her magic act, built by her father, illusionist Charles de Vere, debuted in September 1910 in Marseilles. She prominently featured trained animals in her act, deployed skills learned traveling with a circus animal trainer, whom she married. After remarkable success in Europe, a planned tour of the U.S. failed after a prominent theater with which she had contracted declared bankruptcy before her tour could begin. Her brief career ended after a second marriage to a Russian prince, and her magic equipment may have been destroyed in the Russian Revolution.
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ReplyDeleteThe US theatre was the Folies Bergere NYC, which eventually became the Helen Hayes. Ionia's magical career ended in 1913, long before she married her second husband. Clementine was in Russia, but she was not performing magic. None of the items that she lost in Moscow were magic related.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing great information, it is really nice post.
ReplyDeleteZauberer Stuttgart
To the question of how many female magicians are there, it's an eternal question. There is a list of over 440 names. The list starts with Annie Abbott and ends with Maritess Zurbano. It between there is Julia Ferrett, Ada Fitzroy, Autumn Morning Star, Jehul de Retz, Jan Rose, Suzy Wandas, and Diana Zimmerman.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Clementine was contracted to perform at New York's Folies Bergere, there is no evidence that she was contracted to perform at other theaters in the U.S. Her connection with the NYC Folies Bergere was a family connection, her brother in law, Frank Godsol.
Clementine had at least one U.S. performance. It was in Scranton, PA on March 6, 1906.
Her career as at Ionia started in France in 1908. Her magical act, the one created by her father, debuted September 10 in Marseille at the Palais de Cristal. Her magical career ended in October of 1913 in Berlin, Germany. At that time she was still married to Herman Weedon.
Clementine went to Russia in June oaf 1914. She did not do magic in Russia. While in Russia she bought several large estates and did business with various Russian cities, supplying them with resources from her land holding. After four years, Clementine left Russian in December 1918. She married prince Vladimir Eristastavi Tchitcherine in Paris on June 21, 1919. In 1920, the couple moved to Washington, DC. While he worked for the Russian govt, Vladimir and Clementine were residents of the District of Columbia.