Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra

Napoleon Sarony

1891

Credits

Photograph by Napoleon Sarony. Theatrical Cabinet Photographs of Women (TCS 2), Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Theater in Jewish Culture

1750–1880

The novelty in Jewish performing arts in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries involved the adaptation of traditional materials into new forms, as well as a turn to performing arts that were unconnected to religious life. 

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The Expansion of Jewish Performance Art: Theater, Dance, and the Birth of Cinema

1880–1918

Jewish creativity in theater, dance, and early cinema expanded dramatically around the world, taking on nationalist significance for a Jewish cultural renaissance.

Creator Bio

Napoleon Sarony

1835–1868

Born in Quebec, then part of the British colony of Lower Canada, Napoleon Sarony moved to New York in 1836 to work as an illustrator. He later cofounded a photography firm in 1843. When his wife died in 1858, he left the firm and traveled across Europe in search of a new creative community and more artistic training. He spent time with his brother Oliver, a famed photographer, in Scarborough, England, before opening his own studio in Birmingham. He returned to New York in 1866. Over the course of his lifetime, Sarony photographed Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, William T. Sherman, Mark Twain, and countless other luminaries in theater, politics, and literature.

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