Born 1871 in Strasbourg, French actress and opera singer Amélie Diéterle went to Paris in 1889 where she was chosen from 40 competitors to enter the Concerts Colonne. Her little voice flutée and her nose “trumpet” make her very popular and very appreciated. She became the protégé of art collector Paul Gallimard, who was also the owner of the Variety Theater. She also inspired poets Léon Dierx and Stéphane Mallarmé.
Auguste Renoir made three portraits of her, a lithograph in gray on wove paper in 1899, exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago Museum and a pastel in 1903, exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston. The two paintings depict Amélie Diéterle wearing a white hat. The third portrait, made around 1910, is a pastel, currently at the Antoine-Lecuyer Museum in Saint-Quentin.
Alfred Philippe Roll made a painting of Diéterle in June 1913, showing her half-naked sitting in a garden chair with. This painting is donated by Mrs. Henriette Roll at the Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris, at the Petit Palais. It has achieved great notoriety as is still reflected today the many postcards of the 1900s that represent it.
Diéterle lived for a long time in the city of Croissy-sur-Seine. She withdraws progressively from the scene between 1920 and 1923. In 1940, she took refuge in Vallauris and died in Cannes after a long illness in 1941 at the age of 70.
Here are some fascinating vintage portraits of a young Amélie Diéterle, one of the popular actresses of the Belle Époque until the beginning of the Années Folles.
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