Paris, 1892: a poster plastered around town advertises a remarkable human oddity. ‘La belle Irène’ is scheduled to dazzle the Jardin de Paris, a venue on the Champs-Elysées. Under a short, low-cut dress, her widely tattooed body is left visible – including her name, spread out like a banner across her chest. This isn’t the first time that Irene Woodward comes to France. In 1890, she amazed the spectators of the Montagnes-Russes on the Boulevard des Capucines. ‘This graceful individual is painted blue,’ wrote newspaper Le Matin, ‘Miss Irène [looks like] an art gallery.’
Irene’s tattoos tell a story of savagery, deeply embedded in the context of the conquest of the West. ‘This young woman, twenty years of age, was held captive by Indians as a child during the Civil War, along with her whole family. In order to save her from being massacred, her father undertook to tattoo her. Among Indians, tattooing inspires absolute reverence and is perceived as the sign of a higher power,’ published the Figaro in 1890. Following a pattern established by the Captain Costentenus when he came to the Folies-Bergère in 1874, Irene toured the Parisian newsrooms. The plan was to take advantage of the considerable influence of newspapers in French society in order to spark interest into her act and story. The reader was therefore invited to come and witness the extent and details of her tattoos. Indeed, her tattoos do make a curious patchwork: ‘Masonic symbols’ engraved by a Freemason father, ‘Indian precepts’ meant to please their tormentors, flowers, crosses and suns… Irene embodies the paradoxes of a country where Occidental norms coexist with native populations, who are so crudely described that they become harmful caricatures. Her skin reflects a cultural war. Furthermore, she presents herself as the martyr of a six-year-long tattooing process, an extreme predicament she apparently survived thanks to her Christian faith: the journalist insists on such tattooed maxims as ‘Don’t give up’ and ‘Trust in God’. If tattooed performers were then in fashion, it was because their body offered the thrill of meeting something foreign and strange. Irene was a spiritual successor to Olive Oatman’s exhibitions in the United States: she was tattooed on her chin by Mohave people. In Europe, such encounters were also turned into performances by the likings of Captain Costentenus and Emma and Frank de Burgh. In France, spectacularly tattooed people of the late 19th century could be seen in such fashionable and flashy venues as the Folies-Bergère or the Skating de la Rue Blanche.
Irene’s tale should be taken with a grain of salt, though. The Figaro article mentions that she belongs to the famed American businessman P. T. Barnum. Whereas, in 1890, the Parisian Préfecture de Police decided to put a ban on medical freak shows, P. T. Barnum turned such exhibitions into a brand-new type of showbusiness. And he did it in such a way that French newspaper did not hesitate to call him a charlatan. More generally, suspicions of painted-on tattoos and fake deformities were common in the freak-show world. Therefore, some ads and articles about Irene read like certificates of authenticity. A few days after her débuts at the Montagnes-Russes, Le Figaro dedicated a few lines to the ‘medical assembly’ she was subjected to: ‘Every physician in attending bore witness to the genuine nature of that young woman’s tattoos. This will certainly give a new breath to Miss Irene’s success.’ The Parisian spectator was a demanding one, even in those light-hearted venues where they went to be dazzled and surprised by a whole array of curiosities and oddities.
Irene’s tattoos may be authentic, but her history is dubious at best. According to Amelia K. Osterud, Irene Woodward was actually named Ida Levina Lisk. Born in 1857, she grew up in Philadelphia the daughter of a shoemaker. After witnessing one of Captain Costentenus’ performances in Denver, she travelled to New York to get her own tattoos in 1882 and began her own career as a human oddity. She travelled to Europe and toured with her husband George E. Sterling, first as a part of Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth, then as an independent act. Their travels are recorded in the United Kingdom, France and Germany… It is a testimony to the viability of such career plans, in the golden age of the freak show. However, the story of her captivity was nothing more than a tale. It doesn’t change the fact that she owes her success to this tale. After fifteen years of travel, Irene retired. She died at fifty-eight, in October 1915. American newspapers drafted theories as to the cause of her uterine cancer: was the ink of her famed tattoo to be blamed? No matter what, her tattoos were copied on 30 or so wax figures presented in European anatomical museums. Long after her death, they reminded visitors of the time Europe fell in love with ‘La belle Irène’… Jeanne Barnicaud Sources Jean Frollo, « Barnum et Cie », Le Petit Parisien, 29 janvier 1885. « Échos. À travers Paris », Le Figaro, 23 février 1890. « Courrier des théâtres. Petites nouvelles », Le Figaro, 5 mars 1890. Aurélien Scholl, « Chronique parisienne », Le Matin, 12 avril 1890. « Petit courrier », Le Gaulois, 11 juin 1892. Sources des illustrations (Attention, le type de licence doit être précisé) « Jardin de Paris. La belle Irene », Imprimerie Charles Lévy, affiche, 1892, Musée Carnavalet Histoire de Paris (Domaine public). « Folies-Bergère. Le capitaine Costentenus », Imprimerie Lith. F. A. Appel, affiche, 1889, Musée Carnavalet Histoire de Paris (Domaine public). « Inauguration à Paris des Montagnes-Russes », Imprimerie Charles Lévy, affiche, entre 1882 et 1888, Musée Carnavalet Histoire de Paris (Domaine public). Pour aller plus loin Jeanne Barnicaud, « L’homme tatoué : anatomie d’un phénomène », Retronews. Le site de presse de la BnF, 2021. Marion Bergogne, Les Fêtes foraines parisiennes (1874-1938), Mémoire de Master 2 en histoire, sous la direction de Dominique Kalifa, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2012. Jane Caplan (dir.), Written on the Body. The Tattoo in European and American History, Londres, Reaktion Books, 2000. Amelia K. Osterud, The Tattooed Lady. A History, Lanham, Boulder, New York et Londres, Taylor Trade Publishing, 2014. Amelia K. Osterud, « Where Irene is now », Tattooedladyhistory, 5 décembre 2016.
