István Horkay, 1866 (ca, original photograph) 2014 (ca, image), A Children's Play (Bluebeard's Wives) Staged photograph, Digital process, Source requested, LL/54761
István Horkay 1866 (ca, original photograph) 2014 (ca, image) A Children's Play (Bluebeard's Wives) Staged photograph
Digital process Source requested Source unclear and this is a contemporary plate or video still by István Horkay. (Alan Griffiths, 28 May 2014)
1866: A Children's Play (Bluebeard's Wives) Staged photograph
This plate was created by John Coates Browne around 1866. Browne was an amateur photographer with a prominent role in the Photographic Society of Philadelphia.
The morbidity of the image may come as a shockfive of the six young girls are play-acting dead. Hung by their hair, their faces are painted white, matching their ghostly gowns. The play is based on a French fairytale about a nobleman who has a penchant for killing successive young wives. An outcast, he is feared for his ugly blue beard. He has been married several times, and each of his young wives mysteriously disappears, frightening the village girls. The story takes place when his most recent wife, still alive, discovers his secret cellar where he keeps the bodies of his murdered former wives, and recounts her attempts to escape.
