Buffalo Bill, Barnum & Bailey And Zazel

Details

Buffalo Bill, Barnum & Bailey And Zazel
A rare collection of scrap and photograph albums associated with the circus, entertainment and travelling shows from circa 1877 to the early 1900s, comprising:

-- A scrap album of material associated with Zazel - human cannon ball and high wire artist, compiled between 1877-1907 including two song sheets for Zazel Valses by Charles Dubois [Musical Director, Royal Aquarium], each with illustrated chromolithographic covers of Zazel performing her feats, two photographs of Zazel at the Royal Aquarium, Westminster by the London Stereoscopic Company, one of her standing at the mouth of a cannon, the other of her on the high wire -- 6¼x8in. (15.9x20.3cm.) and 8¼x6¼in. (21x15.8cm.) respectively; an autograph letter, signed from P.T.Barnum to Mr George Starr, on Murray Hill Hotel, 40th to 41st St, Park Avenue, New York, headed paper stating ...my wife says she will give Zazel a bouquet if she will wear a white costume when up on the wire. Really she cannot be seen up there in darkness and her act is too good to be lost. Yours P.T.Barnum, 1p. with corresponding envelope; Zazel personalized stationary (cropped), Zazel [Rosa Matilda Richter's] birth certificate; and various cuttings from the Illustrated Sporting Dramatic News, Vanity Fair, The Penny Illustrated paper, Punch, Daily Chronicle, Kansas City Times and others, in an album, full morocco boards decorated in gilt with a motif of a cannon it's barrel inscribed Zazel (album fire-damaged);

-- A photograph album containing sixty-nine photographs of Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show On Earth, circa early 1900s, subjects include: various rail cars -- the advertising car, sleeping cars, the elephant car, the camel car; unloading elephants, various cars being loaded on and off the S.S. Michigan in Hamburg, setting up the menagerie tent, various procession wagons containing lions, hippos, goats and dogs, views of the show ground and advertising hoardings, a line-up of various circus stars captioned The Prodigies including freaks, crowds watching the procession and waiting to gain entry to the tents, a chariot race, interior views of the hippodrome tent and menagerie and work shop in Stoke-on-Trent, various sizes, largest -- 11 3/8x9 3/8in. (28.9x23.8cm.) (front cover missing);

-- A photograph album containing approximately sixty-four photographs of Buffalo Bill's Wild West And Congress Of Rough Riders Of The World Show, circa 1903-1905, various scenes include a show ground in Paris beneath the Eiffel tower, Red Indians riding on parade through Paris, Buffalo Bill shaking hands with a Indian chief Irontail, Indians and families outside their teepees in the Indian village within the show ground, chief Irontail and others smoking a calumet/peace-pipe various troops including Cowboys, Cossacks, Arabs, Gauchos, also a 'victim' enacting scenes with a giant Moor [probably Aaron Moore who stood 8ft 2½in. (2m 50cm.) high, Indians including Chief Irontail, Buffalo Bill, Cowboys and the Deadwood Mailcoach, Buffalo Bill and Red Indians on horseback outside the arena, various members of Buffalo Bill's staff including business manager Jule Keen in his wagon and Buffalo Bill posing for publicity shots in his tent and on the showground, various sizes, majority -- 4¾x6¾in. (12x17.2cm.)

-- A family photograph album, majority of the sixty-two photographs appear to be of Zazel and her family, four showing crowds outside the entrance to Barnum & Baileys's Greatest Show On Earth in Paris and five others of individuals beside various Buffalo Bill's Wild West show wagons and teepees, largest -- 5¼x4½in. (13.3x11.4cm.) (4)

Literature

WEYBRIGHT, Victor and SELL, Henry Buffalo Bill & The Wild West, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1956 pp 169, 178-18
RUSSELL, Don The Lives And Legends Of Buffalo Bill, U.S.A. Oklahoma University Press, 1960, pp.439-442

Lot Essay

According to press cuttings, Rosa M.Richter - Zazel, born in 1860, the daughter of a circus and dramatic agent, first went on stage at the age of four as one of Cinderella's sisters in a juvenile pantomime at Drury Lane. She was so successful that Cammack a ballet master took an interest in her and trained her as child dancer. She also learnt gymnastics and at the age of twelve toured with a Japanese troupe, and with them learnt how to balance. In an interview with Zazel in circa 1889, she described how she made her debut as a human cannon ball and high wire artist in 1877, appearing throughout Europe and before crowned heads. Her act included rope tricks of a height sometimes of seventy-five feet above the audience and fifty feet above the safety net, without a balancing pole. Her tricks included feigning sleep on the wire, sitting on it, wearing baskets on her feet and walking the full length and diving into the net. When asked if she found it pleasant to be shot out of the cannon she replied ..No, indeed...There is a great jar on the ear, and then it is so difficult to hold one's breath...I am compelled to remain perfectly rigid, and as soon as I give the signal 'ready', I am forced to hold my breath, or else, they say, I would be ground up into fragments. In order to get used to the cannon practise, I had to be fired out about a distance of four or five feet a day for nearly a year; then the distance increased gradually ...until ...I gained a distance of twenty feet... It apparently took Zazel three years of gruelling practise until she perfected her profession. Zazel married George O. Starr, P.T.Barnum's representative known as 'Plucky Boy George' who travelled throughout the Americas and the world finding novelties for the Greatest Show On Earth . Starr's varied career also included management of an opera company and several theatres such as The Criterion Theatre in New York and Crystal Palace in London. It was however George Starr's association with the Barnum and Bailey circus which appears in turn to account for his families' connection with Buffalo Bill's Wild West & Congress Of Rough Riders Of The World Show in Europe - as Buffalo Bill's/W.F.Cody's later European tours were managed by James A. Bailey. Cody's partner Nate Salsbury brought James Bailey into the business as a partner in 1894. Buffalo Bill's last European tour began in 1902 and it has been said that ...Bailey kept the Wild West show in Europe for four successive seasons to keep it out of competition with his circuses in the U.S... however it also made sense for Bailey to use the experience he had gained with the Barnum & Bailey show ...which had made a successful tour of Europe from 1897-1902. This had the practical aspect of permitting an exchange of transportation and other equipment.... The Barnum & Bailey and Buffalo Bill photographs in this collection appear to date from between circa 1900-1905.

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