The presentation piece designed as a laurel wreath of honor, unsigned, probably American, inscribed ‘A MADAME SARAH BERNHARDT, 9 DECEMBRE 1896, MAURICE GRAU’; circa 1896.

Sold among Sarah Bernhardt’s treasures, Salle Petit, rue de Sèze, Paris, 11-13 June 1923. The collection of Michel de Bry, Paris Chayette & Cheval, Paris, 23 April 1997, lot 168

International Private Collection

Paris, Espace Pierre Cardin – Avenue Gabriel, Sarah Bernhardt, 31 March – 30 May 1976.

Sarah Bernhardt, (Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris Exhibition Catalogue), 1976, page 63, no. 177.

In good condition overall, even patina to surfaces commensurate with age. Dimensions approximately 10 x 8¼ inches. Internal circumference approximately 21½ inches.
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Together with a stand in two parts and a framed photograph of Sarah Bernhardt.  ‘The Sarah Bernhardt celebration on Wednesday [9 December 1896] went without a hitch. Five hundred admirers of Madame Bernhardt sat down to the luncheon [in the Salle du Zodiaque] at the Grand Hôtel, Paris. M. [Victorien] Sardou proposed her health as ‘’the great and good Sarah.’’ She responded by simply saying, ‘’Thanks, thanks to all from my heart.’’ A special hymn in her honor, words by M. [Armand] Silvestre, music by M. [Gabriel] Pierné, was performed by M. [Édouard] Colonne’s orchestra [from the Théâtre du Châtelet]; then everybody repaired to the [Théâtre de la] Renaissance, where, amid thunders of applause, the heroine of the day appeared before a brilliant audience in an act of Phédre, and another of Rome Vaincue, M. [Alexandre] Parodi’s tragedy, in which at the [Comédie -]Français some twenty years ago she played the role of an old woman . . . Finally the divinity, seated in a floral throne, with a crown of verdure above her head, surrounded on the stage by a bevy of young girls in white robes, bearing palm branches in their hands, received the homage which six poets, MM. [François] Coppée, [Catulle] Mendés, [Edmond] Haraucourt, [José-Maria] De Hérédia, [André] Theuriet, and [Edmond] Rostaud, came to lay at her feet in as many sonnets, each more exquisitely dithyrambic than the other, while the audience cheered to the echo.’

 

This report, from The Era (London, Saturday 12 December 1896, p. 12) goes on to record that Bernhardt received that day dozens of gifts and congratulatory messages from friends and admirers. Among the luminaries who could not attend the celebration but who wished to be remembered to Madame were such international stars as Nellie Melba, Gabrielle Réjane, Emma Calvé, the brothers Jean and Edouard De Reszké, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Wilson Barrett. The latter wrote from London, ‘sending the sketch of a silver wreath which he intends presenting as a testimony of his admiration to the eminent actress,’ and from New York Maurice Grau sent ‘a laurel crown in gold.’

 

This ‘laurel crown’ is the wreath of honor in this lot. It was commissioned for presentation to Madame Bernhardt on her special day, 9 December 1896, by the Austrian-born American impresario, Maurice Grau (1849-1907), who sent it over to Paris from New York where he was a partner in the management of the Metropolitan Opera House. His relationship with Bernhardt was especially warm, he having known her since the early 1880s when he was partly responsible for having engaged her for appearances at Booth’s Theater. 

 

Born as the daughter of a Dutch Jewish courtesan in Paris in 1844, Sarah Bernhardt became one of the most celebrated in the history of Western theater. Having attended a convent early in life, she studied acting at the Conservatory in Paris from 1860 to 1862, thanks to her excellent contacts in the theater and the art world. She made her debut at the Théâtre Français on 31 August 1862 in Racine's Iphigénie. However, her international breakthrough came in 1868 with a role in Alexandre Dumas’s Kean at the Théâtre de L’Odéon in Paris.

‘The Divine Sarah,’ as her admirers called her, was not only known for her dramatic and passionate interpretations on stage, but also infamous for her hot temper, which caused several offstage scandals throughout her life and cost her a role at the Comédie Française. She surrounded herself with illustrious and important people from artistic circles, such as Alexandre Dumas and Gustave Flaubert. Her international reputation was secured when she appeared in London and toured the United States in 1879/1880. After her first performance in New York, she rewarded her enchanted audience with 27 curtain calls.

 

Afterwards, Bernhardt went on several world tours, travelling to such exotic places as Brazil, Uruguay, Cuba and Mexico. She was always accompanied by her private zoo and her extensive personal luggage, consisting of 75 crates for her off-stage clothing alone. Back in Paris, Bernhardt became the actor manager of the Théâtre de la Renaissance from 1893 to 1899, were her admirers gathered on her special day in 1896. In this function, she introduced the rule that all women in the audience, no matter how wealthy, had to take off their hats during performances, so that everyone in the audience had a clear view. 

 

Her romantic style of acting with great gestures and exuberant declamations, her beauty and grace, as well as her fearlessness have made her a thespian legend. Her work was officially recognized when the French Government awarded her the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur in 1914. The following year her right leg was amputated in consequence of an earlier fall on stage but she carried on working and even insisted upon visiting wounded soldiers at the Front in a sedan chair during World War I. Throughout this last phase of her life, Madame Bernhardt also starred in a number of motion pictures, appearing as Marguerite Gauthier in Camille (1912), Jeanne Doré in the film of that name (1915), Jeanne d’Urbex in Mothers of France (1914) and Madame Gainard in The Clairvoyant (1924). The last was released in France following Bernhard’s death in Paris on 26 March 1923. The following day an estimated 30,000 people attended her funeral.