Gabrielle Ray, Christmas Witch, 1907

Apparently, I needed a break. So I took one. “Am taking one” I should say, ’cause I haven’t finished being broken, or breaking, or taking a break, or whatever. But I wanted to start the new year (NB to any non-pagans out there, the real new year has already started) with a pretty witch xmas card of the delightful Gabrielle Ray (1883–1973), “one of the most photographed women in the world” (according to Wikipedia).

Ray performed at leading West End venues, becoming famous across Europe for her youthful beauty and her skill as a dancer. As the bio. on this site explains, “She had a graceful fluidity coupled with an acrobatic prowess that made her dancing nothing less than sensational.” In 1907, Ray played “Frou Frou” in George Edwardes’ adaptation of The Merry Widow, which ran for 778 performances at Daly’s Theatre. Ray’s dance number, complete with handstands and high kicks, performed on a table at Maxim’s held head high by four men, was a show stopper. Probably a heart-stopper too.

This photo is slightly earlier: it is one of a series of photos of Ray as “So-Hie” in the “Chinese” comic opera, See-See at the 
Prince of Wales’s Theatre, London, 20 June 1906.
 The photograph has been altered by the Rotary Photographic Co. Ltd of London, probably in 1907, for issue in its Rotary Photographic Series. You can see others in this series, and find lots of information about Ray, here.

Sadly, as Ray’s career waned “a damaging combination of depression and alchoholism brought about a total breakdown in health”; in 1936 she suffered a total nervous breakdown which led to her remaining institutionalized in a mental hospital for nearly forty years! What an end for a woman with so much going for her.

And with this terrible warning before all of us I hope you’ll forgive me for continuing my break a little longer. I will start posting regularly towards the end of (my) summer. Adieu.

Welcome to the Walpurgishalle, 1901

Here is something special for Walpurgisnacht. As I wrote here (five years ago!):

Walpurgisnacht is celebrated in Germany on 30 April (Beltane or May Eve). On this night witches are thought to fly to a plateau on Brocken Mountain deep in the Harz Mountains … The plateau is known as the Hexentanzplatz, the witches’ dancing place … it is here that Goethe set the witches’ sabbat in his Faust (1808, 1832). By the turn of the century a thriving tourist industry had prompted the publication of numerous witch-themed postcards.

You will find these postcards here, here, here and here. Later in 2006 I explained that, “By the 1920s, another tourist gimick was added: Brocken ‘money’ (Brocken or Thale Notgeld).” You will find images of Brocken money here and here.

[Walpurgishalle, 1901 (postcard no. 7)]

And now I can add the Walpurgis Hall (Walpurgishalle), which was built at the Hexentanzplatz by the Berlin architect Bernhard Sehring in old-Germanic style in 1901. Carved across the front of the building above the doorway to the Walpurgishalle is a frieze. The head of Wodan crowns the pediment, flanked by the Ravens Hudin and Munin (which symbolize his thoughts and memories) and the wolves and Gari Freki, who are his guards and agents.

[Walpurgishalle, 1910]

Today the Walpurgishalle is a museum. Hermann Hendrich (1854–1931) created five large paintings for the interior of the hall showing scenes from the Goethe’s Faust. These are

[1] Irrlichtertanz (Erring light dance) [postcard no. 3]
[2] Mammonshöhle (Mammon’s Cavern) [postcard no. 5]
[3] Hexentanz (witch dance) [postcard no. 6]
[4] Windsbraut (wind bride) [postcard no. 4]
[5] Gretchenerscheinung or Gretchentragödie (Tragedy of Gretchen) [postcard no. 3]

[Irrlichtertanz (postcard no. 2)]

[Gretchenerscheinung (postcard no. 3)]

[Windsbraut (postcard no. 4)]

[Mammonshöhle (postcard no. 5)]

[Hexentanz (postcard no. 6)]

Reproductions of these paintings were published in a book (which I don’t have) and a series of postcards (which were hugely popular, and which I do have). Three more images appear in the postcard series:

[6] “Hexenfahrt” (witch journey) [postcard no. 1]
[7] Walpurgishalle—Hexentanzplatz [postcard no. 7]
[8] “Sternenreigen” (star dance [lit. roundelay]) [postcard no. 8]

[Hexenfahrt (postcard no. 1)]

[Sternenreigen (postcard no. 8)]

For an insight into the paintings, which can be seen much more clearly in the photos by Raymond Faure. You will find a page of his excellent photos of the Walpurgishalle here. This panorama below might help orient you.

[Panorama of the interior of the Walpurgishalle]

Puck and the Witch, 1912

Here is yet another sepia lithographic postcard from The Pink of Perfection series. Not only is it from the same series as last week’s card (“Series 152″), the artwork on this card also contains a Gibson Art Company copyright statement (“©1912 C. R. Gibson”), though it was published under license by the Fairman Company of New York.

The caption on this card reads

Hallowe’en
Puck, the Sprite,
Weaves to night,
Fortunes bright.

Despite the caption, Puck is not in evidence. We have, instead, another pretty witch, with full cheeks, pale skin and hair, in a silken black witch’s hat, holding a JOL. Our winsome witch holds her JOL with all but the little finger of her right hand, which is held aloft. The gesture is subtle (and difficult to see on this card) but full of meaning—at least it is in Australia where the Roads and Traffic Authority used it in an anti-speeding campaign.

How? Well a woman wiggles her little finger at a driver to imply he has a small penis (see this news item here, concerning a road-rage incident it provoked, but not here, the Wikipedia page for single hand gestures!) So, perhaps our witch is saying something about Puck’s penis.**

Moving right along. This card appears to be from the same collection as the one I posted last week, and so it also has a destination or sales area marked on it: “Denmark, No. 4.” Since the one from last week was a suburb of New York I am not quite sure what to make of this.

**I promise that I didn’t set out to get the phrases “Pink of Perfection” and “Puck’s penis” in the same post. Honest.

C. R. Gibson Witch, 1912

Here is another sepia lithographic postcard published by the Fairman Company of New York in The Pink of Perfection series, in this case from Series 152. As I said a few weeks back (here), Fairman were licensed to print Gibson Art Company designs, and this is one of them. As you can see, painted into the folds of the cape is “©1912 C. R. Gibson.”

In this Gibson design we have a pretty witch, with full cheeks and pale skin, smiling at her reflection in the mirror. (Presumably, when this witch asked the magic mirror on the wall who was the fairest of them all, she got the answer she expected!) The caption reads:

Hallowe’en.
List! You are bid
By fairy and sprite
To find what’s hid
On All Hallow night

Which sounds like a treasure hunt, but perhaps what is hid(den), has been hidden in the mirror—like the philosopher’s stone in The Mirror of Erised.

And if this were the Mirror of Erised, it might explain both why the witch is so gorgeous and why she is so happy. But I digress. Check out the broom-shaped hat-pin thing tucked into her hat-band.

Back in February I did a post of a witch with the same sort of broom-shaped hat-pin (here). I’ve got to get me a hat-pin like this! [see update below]

* * * * *

BTW: This card was part of a large collection that I have mentioned a few times. Doing some digging recently I discovered this entry archived online for a “Group of 7 Halloween postcards … Each card has a punch hole near top. 5 of the 7 has [a] name and number written on back. We think these were destination or sale[s] areas? Cards have all been trimmed on top edge, possibly when they were cut from manufacturing sheet.” This isn’t the way I bought this card, but it—and a few others—have a hole punched into them and a location written on the back, so I gather that the person who bought this lot, broke the cards up and sold them separately.

As you can see, the note on this card reads “Fort Schuyler / No. 4″. Fort Schuyler is in the Bronx in New York. So, perhaps, this card was hocked around the Bronx by salesman no. 4 in 1912.

[UPDATE 2 August 2011: See here for the third example I have of a broom-shaped hat-pin (including an image of all three hat pins together)]

Mystic Witch, 1912

This sepia lithographic postcard appeared in “Series 153″ published by the Fairman Company of New York. It is stamped with their logo which reads “The [flower] of Pink Perfection. Regd The Fairman Co. N.Y.” (if you read strictly left-to-right) or “The Pink of Perfection …” (if you read one side of the flower-logo and then the other), which makes more sense.

According to Mashburn, many of the designs that were used by the Fairman Company are the same as those used by the Gibson Art Company, but I have only see this one—and the cards I will be posting from “Series 152″—with Pink of Perfection logos. (Fantasy Postcards: A Comprehensive Reference (1996), 237, 239.) BTW The logo used on the previous series (R) was similar, but not identical, to the one on this card (L), as you can see above.

This card was in the same fabulous collection as the one I posted last week. The seller claims that the artist is Kathryn Elliott and that this is one of a seven card set. Although there is a hint of a signature beneath the really cool owl (below), I can “neither confirm nor deny” that it is the signature of Kathryn Elliott!

If it is Elliott—and Elliott was one of The Fairman Co. stable of artists—she was certainly gifted. The monochrome shading is subtle but hugely effective. Look at the face of the witch and the glowing eyes of her familiar!

The caption for the card reads:

The black cat wears its mystic ring,
The witch bat spreads its fearsome wing,
The goblins weirdly chant and sing,
On HALLOWE’EN.

I am not sure how a cat wears a “mystic ring”—unless the mystic ring is the crescent moon that surrounds both the cat and the witch. The “witch bat” is pretty cure rather than “fearsome,” and there is not much evidence of goblins weirdly chanting. Still, the whole poem has a lovely rhythm and the witch is both elegant and beautiful, so I am not complaining!

[And yes, I realise that the witch isn't described as "mystic" on this card, but (1) after 353 posts it is difficult to come up with new post-titles and (2) it is my blog so I can do whatever I want! Just saying.]