Digital Transgender Archive
[Les deux gosses]
Inscription: "Addressed to Paul Rabeau; messages with three different largely illegible signatures." Three postcards (nos. 2, 3 and 4) from a series of unknown length recounting episodes adapted from the melodramatic novel Les Deux gosses (Jules Rouff & Cie., 1880) by the popular author and playwright Pierre Decourcelle (1856– 1926). The “two kids” of the title are Fanfan, the son of a diplomat carted off and raised by a married pair of petty criminals, and Claudinet, the ragged natural son of the couple. Decourcelle subsequently adapted the novel as a drama; in an 1896 production at the Théâtre de l’Ambigu in Paris, the characters of the two boys were cast as trouser roles for young actresses, with Fanfan played by Mlle. Mélo and Claudinet by Mlle. Reyé. In the postcard series, the models for the two boys likewise are cross-dressed young women dressed. The images may therefore represent an actual stage production—or at least an expectation established by stage productions that Fanfan and Claudinet would be trouser roles. Stamps and postmarks on recto of each card. Lower corners of one card creased. SOURCE: “A l’Ambigu. Les deux gosses, drame de M. Pierre Decourcelle; Aux bouffes. Ninette. Opéra-comique de Ch. Lecoq et de Ch. Clairville” (page from the Journal Amusant, undated issue from 1896); posted on Europeana; consulted Oct. 31, 2014: www.europeana.eu/portal/record/9200365/ BibliographicResource_1000055735940.html.
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- https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:24416220
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- Citation
- Cite
- Identifier
- z890rt52z
- Collection
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Postcards of Female and Male Impersonators and Cross-dressing
- Institution
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Human Sexuality Collection, Cornell University
- Date Created
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1910
- Genre
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Ephemera
- Places
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France
- Topic(s)
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Male impersonators
- Resource Type
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Still Image
- Analog Format
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14.1 x 9 (centimeters)
- Language
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French
- Rights
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No known copyright
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.
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