Here’s a quartet of images from the early 1900s, all featuring French cabaret personalities. They are dashing and also quite scintillating.
This one’s “Gabrielle de Vere, French cabaret artist.” That top hat strikes me as very risqué somehow.
This one feels... very dirty.
Particularly fun is “Manuy of the Folies Bergere dressed as a postman.” Good sext.
Raciest and least safe-for-work of all is this shot of “French cabaret artiste Ninette d’Arville, enjoying the scent from a flower.” What I can’t figure out is which part is body stocking and which part is bare skin.
What’s especially interesting about these photographs is who took them. According to information from the UK’s National Portrait Gallery, a father and son both worked under the name “Walery.” Between 1888 and 1896, Stanislaw Julian Ostrorog—Walery père—did a series of photos titled “Our Celebrities,” featuring a number of prominent and respectable Victorian women, including the Queen herself. The man who took these photos was Stanislaw Julian Ignacy, after he moved to Paris and “began to specialise in the showgirls of Folies Bergere and subjects such as Mata Hari,” explains the National Gallery. Very curious to know how those two got along!
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Photos via Getty Images.