When I saw this in an auction, I simply told myself "MINE". These two ladies, Sara Bernhardt and Lilly Landtry, were the TOP women singers in the western world during the Victorian Era. Both traveled in America and Europe. Landry even sung at the Bird Cage theater in Tombstone, Arizona. On the back is a cutting from an old article with an illustration of THIS image. Evidently, the theater photographer, Napoleon Sorony of NY approached both women then on tour there and asked them to pose together. You can see clearly that Langtry was the more relaxed with Bernhardt rather more formal. Evidently, from the article, when they both arrived, it was suggested that maybe they should be photographed separately but Bernhardt "insisted" that they be photographed together as planned. The article says that after "the ordeal was over, Berhardt's spirits seemed to rise and when she and Mrs. Langtry left the studio she was laughing and chatting with all the abandon of a child". This has become one of my favorite photographs.
