About This Image

This image by Felix Nadar is printed from the original glass negative plate by Paul Nadar, his son. It is signed, stamped and captioned on the verso. An important piece of documentation of an important image by one of the masters of early photography.Victorien Sardou (September 5, 1831 - November 8, 1908) was a French dramatist. He is perhaps best remembered today for the play La Tosca (1887) on which Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca (1900) is based. The fedora hat is named after another of his plays. British playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw came up with the dismissive term "Sardoodledom" in a review of Sardou plays (The Saturday Review, June 1. 1895). Shaw believed that Sardou's contrived dramatic machinery was creaky and that his plays were empty of ideas. Sardou's advice to young playwrights on how to be successful was to "Torture the women!" as part of any play construction.

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