P. Orell's articles in La Citoyenne (1881)

Overview

In 1881 Marie wrote art criticism for Hubertine Auclert's feminist paper La Citoyenne under the pseudonym P. Orell ("Pauline Daria Orell", Wikipedia spells it Orrel). The best-known piece is her review of the Salon of 1881, which she announces as "mon Salon dans la Citoyenne" on 14 May 1881. The articles themselves have not been located for this project; what is known is what the diary says about them.

Marie and this work

The persona is created on 1 December 1880, on her first visit to Auclert's society Le Droit des femmes: "je m'appelle Pauline Daria Orell ... J'adopte le pseudonyme de Daria, pour la peinture" (090.0293); the next day "La citoyenne Pauline Orell, cela fait fort bien. J'aurai naturellement une sorte de double existence" (090.0302). She promises Auclert five hundred francs as a shareholder in the paper (091.0253, 6 March 1881), and on 7 March 1881 sees "mon article imprimé dans La Citoyenne" (091.0273); that piece's subject is not stated.

For the Salon she visits on 1 May with the studio (091.0547): "Je [ne] vous dis rien des tableaux, vous lirez ça dans l'honorable journal la 'Citoyenne'", but gives a passing opinion of Breslau's picture. On 14 May: "Voici mon Salon dans 'La Citoyenne', ce n'est pas mal" (091.0631). On 18 May (092.0023): "Grand succès pour P. Orell de la 'Citoyenne', on pousse la politesse jusqu'à douter que ce puisse être moi tellement c'est bien et juste." Eight months later (13 January 1882, 094.0164) she says of "le frère de Bastien" (Émile Bastien-Lepage) and his picture Le Drapeau: "Je l'ai apprécié dans ma chronique et il m'a envoyé quelques mots très aimables. Je lui ai envoyé une invitation 'de la part de P. Orell'."

What survives

This entry's text is built entirely on the diary and general sources on the paper: La Citoyenne was founded by Hubertine Auclert on 13 February 1881 (Wikipedia, "Hubertine Auclert") and, according to the Alexander Street catalogue, ran until 1891; Wikipedia calls it monthly, but the issue dates in that catalogue look more frequent. The issue numbers and exact titles of Marie's contributions have not been verified. The Alexander Street catalogue of the paper lists issues of 1881 (e.g. no. 13, 8 May 1881), but the archive is subscription-only and was not opened; a search for the pages on Gallica did not find a stable ark for the title. The frontend's "full text" slot is therefore left empty until the issues are found.

References in Diary

Related Entries

Sources