Coloring in the Past
Because Madame Sembrich’s career occurred before commercial color photography, all photographs of the great soprano are black & white. To fill in details, we rely on artist renderings like this recently acquired 1895 typogravure print (right). We searched our collection to identify the image used to create the print. After sorting through over 250 photographs, we found a match (left)! While the gown’s bodice in the print differs slightly, the skirt, accessories, and pose are identical.
While we can now ascertain the color of the gown and accessories, we are also left with a new mystery to solve — what role is actually portrayed in this photograph? The original is labeled “Juliette,” but the print is labeled as “Violetta.” Did she use the same gown for two roles, was our photograph mislabeled, or did the artist mislabel the print?
Left: Marcella Sembrich as Juliette (?) in Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette.” ca. 1891.
Typogravure print of Sembrich as Violetta (?) in Verdi’s “La Traviata.” ca. 1895.
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