Mar 27, 2014 - Sale 2342

Sale 2342 - Lot 495

Price Realized: $ 2,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
THE CAKE WALK (MUSIC.) The Florida Creole Girls * Bacchus & Meallan, and others. Group of sixteen 'Real Photo Post Cards' of beautiful young women and handsome young men, posing in the various attitudes of the popular 'Cake Walk.' France, circa 1900-1902
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These young women, known as the Florida Creole Girls, performed at the Casino de Paris at the turn of the century. They, and Bacchus & Meallan were all part of a larger group of song and dance companies, which introduced the 'Cake Walk' to Europe. The founder and head of the Creole troupe was a Miss Shippert, who is visible in several of these photographs. The Cake Walk made its first public appearance at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial, which featured blacks singing 'plantation songs' and doing a dance called the 'Chalk-line walk.' Similar routines found their way into the repertoires of most minstrel shows from the late 1870's on. A 'Grand Cakewalk was held at Madison Square Garden in 1897, the largest venue in New York City.