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Wendt, [Frank], photog.

[Cabinet card portrait of Millie-Christine.]

New York, ca. 1885. Cabinet card photo, 5.5” x 3.625”, on larger paperboard mount, photo credit on mount below image. Signed in ink on verso, “Millie-Christine.” CONDITION: Good tonality, light spotting, three dings to lower mount with partial losses to photographer’s credit, but no effect on the image; excised sticker mark at upper-right corner on verso.

A photo of the celebrated conjoined twins Millie-Christine shown here aged about thirty-five, the two dressed and styled identically, signed by the sisters in ink on the verso in the same hand seen in other known examples.

Wearing striped dresses, jewelry, pointed shoes and coifed hair, the two sisters stand with their hands at their sides, radiating composure.

Born into slavery in North Carolina in 1851, Millie and Christine were taken from their parents and sold by their owner at a very early age. They were subsequently sold and kidnapped several times, and exhibited throughout much of the U.S. and Europe. Despite the trauma and exploitation, the twins adapted quite readily to show business, proving quite talented. They composed songs and poems, recited, sang, danced, and played the piano, becoming one of the great stage sensations of the nineteenth century. Millie died of tuberculosis in October of 1912; Christine was apparently euthanized with massive doses of morphine shortly thereafter, surgical separation being deemed impossible.

Item #7551

Price: $2,500.00