Figure 1 – Lips, Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

“Supposin that he says
Your lips are like cherries
Or roses or berries
Whatcha gonna do?
Supposin that he says
That yer sweeter than cream
And he’s gotta have cream or die
Whatcha gonna do when he talks that way?
Spit in his eye?”

Rodgers and Hammerstein, “Oklahoma“

I have blogged before about mannequins and their various state of dehumanization: the loss of face, the loss of features, even the all pervasive loss of heads. They are the ultimate of abstractions – diminished to emphasizing whatever body parts are necessary to sell clothing. Today I came upon the latest in this trend – a bald, ghost white, and featureless visage upon which ruby lips have been painted or is it decaled. There is something very odd, enigmatic, and disturbing about it. What are they trying to say to us?

First of all, there seems to be the implicit assumption that the lips have been added to nothingness. That is, we assume that it is not the other way around, where the lips the mouth are the last feature to disappear. You know like the Cheshire Cat. The loss of humanity in the Cheshire cat was recognized by Julian Huxley in his “Religion Without Revelation:“

““Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat.”

I am just saying that there is something deeply disturbing to be found in a face with only lips. It is as if, in parting, the face was kissed by someone else’s lipstick coated lips. That is someone empathetic of the mannequin’s plight.  Therein, I think, lies the essence of the the paradox of the only-lipped mannequin. Lips speak, and they speak of intimacy.  In that regard they are the most humanizing of features. Walk around your local mall or store and you can become a “little creeped out” by the faceless and headless mannequin army. But give them lips and they become just a little bit more human.

“It’s tough to stay married. My wife kisses the dog on the lips, yet she won’t drink from my glass.”

Rodney Dangerfield

Figure 1 – Napolean Sarony “Young Couple c1870.” gentleman. In the public domain by virtue of its age.

I’d like today to follow up on yesterday’s blog “Mysteries of the Belle Époque.

Figure 2 – Autochrome by Andre Hachette Portrait of Sarah Lievine, c 1907. In the public domain in the United Staes because of its age.

”Mystery I – One of my absolute favorite autochromes from the turn of the twentieth century is Andre Hachette’s stunning c 1907 photograph of the equally stunning Miss Sarah Lievine (Figure 2). After a lot of searching I have still not been able to figure out anything about Sarah Lievine. I keep hoping that someday I will. Indeed, I hope that some reader will have some knowledge of her. But for now this Mystery of the Belle Époque remains.

Mystery 2 – Last August I posted what I referred to as photographs of a young couple by portrait artist Napoleon Sarony from c 1871. The gentlemen is shown in Figure 1. I purchased the two images together and the dealer referred to them as a young couple and I could create a story about them in my mind. Of course, it was equally possible that the two were not related. One could not be sure. Well, I have since looked at a lot of Napoleon Sarony and contemporary portraits – particularly those of actors. I now am pretty sure that the gentleman in Figure 3 is the same although slightly older person seen in Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a portrait by Gurney & Son of the then famous actor McKee Rankin. So I am pretty convinced that it is the same person in the two photographs – this just by looking at a lot of photographs, which is pretty remarkable. The lady in my original blog is not however Rankin’s wife, Kitty Blanchard – so that mystery remains. Rankin was extremely successful in his day and was a key player in the development of American theater. He was a founder of a short-lived acting dynasty: himself, Kitty, and his daughter Phyllis Rankin. His story was itself the stuff of theater. In his youth he was charming, handsome, and highly successful. He married a beautiful wife. But in the end alcohol and financial risk taking led to ruin, obesity, and divorce.

So while one mystery of the Belle Époque has been solved, two remain. There is the question of who was Sarah Lievine, and there is the question of the lady in the crinoline.

Figure 3 – McKee Rankin photograph by Gurney and Sons. In the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Figure 1 – Miss Jocelyn Stebbins (Mrs. Fletcher) with Buzzer the Cat, portrait by Arnold Genthe 1912 or 1913, from the US LOC  and in the public domain because of its age.

Yesterday’s posting about Arnold Genthe and Buzzer the Cat poses what I like to refer to as a Mystery of the Belle Époque. It raises the question of exactly who was the spectacularly gorgeous Anna Holch. I suspect that there are students of Women’s Fashion Design who know the answer right away, but actually that is beside the point. There are few puzzles that I love more than a question like “Who was Anna Holch?” And this is because the Belle Époque is just remote enough from us that the embracing tentacles of the internet merely touch and brush against it.

I asked the question of Siri, and she got all confused; so you can see what I mean. The sophistication of the question requires more sophisticated searching or, and more to the point, more sophisticated information coding. But the significant point is that you can ask the question and there is a good chance that it is out there somewhere in cyberspace.

We have often spoken here of the magic of photography. That bewitchingly lies in its ability to hold a century’s old moment – a face – a smile-frozen forever. These are the faces of the nineteenth century and in a sense the ability to name the person and to understand a bit of their lives restores, or reanimates, that life. There is the arguable concept that the coming singularity will merge human and mechanical life, thus rendering it immortal. At least superficially, photography has been doing that for 178 years. That is, it gives immortality through entirely mechanical means. I would suggest that the marriage of photography and the internet deepens or extends this immortality. “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” It is as if the effects of the singularity diffuse, seep, and move backward in time.

A beautiful age filled with beautiful people, and that illusion is an important part of the magic. This was the time of our grandparents and great grandparents. I have a portrait on my office wall of my grandmother taken in 1911; so contemporary with Miss Holch’s portrait. Like Anna my grandmother was young and beautiful. I remember her as a sweet old lady, but the silver gelatin reanimates her and returns her to youth. Like H. Rider Haggard’s Ayesha she is reborn.

What of Anna Holch? Women of the time typically took their husband’s names. And if I am correct Anna Holch rapidly became Mrs. (or Madame) Tappé after marrying fashion designer Herman Patrick Tappé. Anna Holch was the leading hat model of her day. Rather clever of Genthe to pose her with a mere head-band, don’t you think?  According to the Shelby (Ohio) Historical Society:

“He was the first to use models in his business. One of the girls was Anna Holch. She was known throughout New York City as ‘the beautiful Anna.’ She accepted his proposal for marriage, but Tappe wanted to time the announcement to gain maximum effect. He hosted a grand ball at the armory in Sidney in December of 1918 to celebrate the end of the First World War and announce his engagement. Over 600 people attended the social event of the season. … Local folklore has it that Herman later redecorated some of ‘The Chimneys’ in blue to match the striking blue eyes of Anna.

Over the next two decades, with Anna at his side, Herman Tappe became the rage in ladies’ fashions. In a book entitled The Ways of Fashion, author M.D.C. Crawford hailed Tappe as a “designer of creative imagination and authority,” who “for a generation has been recognized as an artist in costume by the most discriminating fashionables in the United States.” Crawford credited him with being the first American designer to gain international fame.”

So at least this little mystery from the Belle Époque is solved. But there are a couple more that I would like to consider, but those for another time. There is at least one more picture of Anna Holch by Arnold Genthe, but it lacks Buzzer; so in my opinion is not as interesting. As a result, I thought that a more fitting ending for today (although it could spark another mystery) is a photograph by Genthe of Buzzer with his companion Miss Jocelyn Stibbens (later Mrs. Fletcher) created in 1912/13.