Silver print photograph portrait.

FELIX, RACHEL

Affixed to paper backing.

Rachel Felix (1821-58) was one of the great French actresses of the 19th century. She was an enormous celebrity in her time, whose private life and relationships fascinated the public no less than her accomplishments onstage. She was from a Jewish family of modest background, and resisted attempts to be converted to Catholicism her entire life. Her funeral was attended by a broad spectrum of French society, presided over by Lazard Isidor (1813-88), then chief rabbi of Paris.