Tweet Someone got their Olive's Mixed?

Here's the sheet music that looks just like Olive Thomas to me:

I think you're right - there is also a preparatory study that Vargas did for 'Memories of Olive' (see http://www.vendio.com/stores/diamondgirl562/item/root/original-watercolor-alberto-va/lid=3286455) that resembles this picture a lot, to my mind.

We get so used to seeing her with the Mary Pickford curls that she looks quite different with the flapper do, but I've seen the passport photo she used to travel to Paris, and her hair was cut short then, as it was in her Follies days.

If you subscribe to the outlandish theory that the artwork is backdated and Vargas' documentation is fabrication, then the serious candidate for the model would be Estelle Taylor. Check out the cropping from the Photoplay Editions' cover art for her Playthings of Desire. Vargas' illustration is just a bawdy version of it, or vice versa, depending on on viewpoint.

If you subscribe to the outlandish theory that the artwork is backdated and Vargas' documentation is fabrication, then the serious candidate for the model would be Estelle Taylor. Check out the cropping from the Photoplay Editions' cover art for her Playthings of Desire. Vargas' illustration is just a bawdy version of it, or vice versa, depending on on viewpoint.

Is this a Vargas? Vargas himself re-did his own work for commercial art purposes, and the dates on his work are often from that usage rather than from the originals. His portrait of Nita (Pan) is dated 1923, but that's the date the picture, with clothing added, appeared in Shadowlands Magazine. The original portrait is one of the first he did for Ziegfeld, 1919 (earliest) to late 1920-early 1921 (latest).

[quote="Frederica"}Is this a Vargas? ...[/quote]

It's uncredited.

Hmmmmmm, appears to me to be a colorized photograph.

Is this a Vargas? ...

It's uncredited.

Despite the basic strangeness of the pose (I cannot recall ever in my life standing like that) it was something of a standard in commercial art at that time, so the similarity might be misleading.

Despite the basic strangeness of the pose (I cannot recall ever in my life standing like that) it was something of a standard in commercial art at that time, so the similarity might be misleading.

I think she and the other models are waiting for crowns to be placed on their heads. Maybe tiaras (is that the correct plural?).

You're going to have to start letting your staff place your tiara instead of doing everything yourself.

Despite the basic strangeness of the pose (I cannot recall ever in my life standing like that) it was something of a standard in commercial art at that time, so the similarity might be misleading.

I think she and the other models are waiting for crowns to be placed on their heads. Maybe tiaras (is that the correct plural?).

You're going to have to start letting your staff place your tiara instead of doing everything yourself.

Tiari? Tiarubim? Tiariau?

If Napoleon could crown himself, then the DoN can, too. Nyah.

If you subscribe to the outlandish theory that the artwork is backdated and Vargas' documentation is fabrication, then the serious candidate for the model would be Estelle Taylor. Check out the cropping from the Photoplay Editions' cover art for her Playthings of Desire.

Would guess that particular artwork was selected merely for its suggestiveness, rather than any fancied similarity to Estelle--the plaything of my imaginary desire since seeing East is East. Not only is there little facial resemblance, but even that coy gesture seems, for her, uncharacteristic. But this picture...I must see it.