That seemed to be the case when my auction buddy Janet and I came across some postcards and bronze sculptures a year or two ago at auction. She collects African American postcards, so she was excited about a set of four showing two couples demonstrating the cakewalk. The postcards were even more amazing because the couples were not depicted as stereotypes at a time when most representations of black people were shown as such.

The bronzes by Austrian sculptor Carl Kauba showed a boy and girl dancing the cakewalk. Janet and I were convinced that the models were black children based on their facial features.

Postcards of Fredy and Rudy Walker from the early part of the 20th century. From the site "Cakewalk - From the U.S. to Parisian Dance Halls 1800s- 1920s."

Neither the postcards nor the bronzes gave any hint of who these people were, and I was not able to identify them. A week ago, I got some help. A reader named Jim emailed me with history on both. Here’s what he said about the sculptures and the models, which he wrote about on his website:

‘The models for this pair of cold-painted bronzes were well known when the Paris cakewalk craze was in full bloom in 1903, and for several years afterward. Here is the first paragraph from their profile at the Oxford African American Studies Center:

Walker, Ruth “Rudy” and Frederick “Fredy” Walker (31 Aug. 1891–after 1928) and (9 Nov. 1893–May 1977), known as The Walkers, song and dance entertainers and actors, were both born in Chicago. It appears that at some time in 1902, the two juvenile dancers, brother and sister, traveled to Europe in the company of their mother, Ella Walker, herself an artist, born in Chicago (in 1860s), according to her own conflicting statements.

That they traveled with their own mother is mentioned in June 1903 and again in the winter 1903/1904 in Vienna, December 1906 in Stockholm, in November 1907 in Berlin, and again in February 1908 in Copenhagen. Billed as “Les Enfants Nègres,” their presentations of the cakewalk dance attracted a lot of attention at the Nouveau Cirque at Paris and paved the way for a long career in Europe. They became so popular that they inspired a composer, a sculptor, and a movie film director, as well as cartoonists.

Their portraits appear on many postcards; in fact, they might well be the most often photographed black entertainers of the period. The cards show them in various dance poses – sometimes together and sometimes solo. Mostly they wear tall, calf-length socks and white dance shoes. The boy wore a white dance costume or gymnast’s suit with a black sash, whereas the girl wore a short skirt.”

The bronzes were not cold-painted, as Jim corrected himself in a subsequent email. Here are some painted sculptures of the two dancers.

Rudy and Fredy certainly fit the images, down to their poses. So, I’m presuming they were Kauba’s models – whether in person or from a postcard. Kauba also made bronzes of the U.S. West, although there is some question about whether he ever came to the country.

Jim’s site and another I came across had postcards of the two children. The second site had a smorgasbord of cakewalk dancers and others who appeared in Paris dance halls from the 1800s to 1920s. Printed on Rudy and Fredy’s cards was the inscription “Danse au Nouveau Cirque, Les Enfantes Negres.”

The site set the publication year of their cards at 1905. Jim noted that the Oxford site had a date of 1903.

Here’s what he wrote about the postcards of the couples:

“That mailing card (the address side) features a doctored photo of Bert Williams from the set. Part of his leg is obscured by the dress of one of the women in the original photo from which this image is taken. His (too small) bowler hat is covered by the stamp. You’ve got a half a set of eight postcards created from photographs of Bert Williams, George Walker, Aida Overton (Walker), and Stella Wiley demonstrating the cakewalk. That’s the easy part. Dating the photos is more difficult. Several online booksellers date them c. 1896.”

Bert Williams, George Walker and Ada (or Aida) Overton Walker were the names most associated with the cakewalk. Williams (in blackface) and George Walker became a comedic team around 1896, and one site noted that the cakewalk was such a signature dance in their performances that many people thought they invented it (they didn’t). It seemed, though, that Overton Walker made it high-class, respectable and her trademark after joining the company.

The postcards seemed to have derived from ads made for the American Tobacco Co. , which asked the men to pose for its Cheroot cigars. The company wanted women to accompany them, so they enlisted Wiley who asked Ada Overton. She resisted, finally relenting after being overly wooed by Walker, who later became her husband, according to the 2008 biography “Introducing Bert Williams.” This anthology on tap dance has a graphic image of her and George doing the cakewalk in 1903.

The postcard series numbered 1-8, and bookstores online were selling sets by Franz Huld Publishers circa 1900. All eight of the colorized cards featured the two couples, with a child said to be in card No. 5.

The address side of the postcard at auction showed a congressional authorization date of 1898, and the other side listed Franz Huld as publisher. The postmark date on the postcard was 1904.

Knowing the history or provenance of the cakewalk items made them even more interesting. Maybe either Janet or I should’ve bidded on the bronzes.

Related posts:

1. Doing the cakewalk – in bronze
2. Cakewalk postcards at auction
3. Black images and America’s shameful past

Well, at another auction this week, she fell in love with a pair of bronze figures of a boy and girl – who appeared to be black – dancing the cakewalk. The bronzes were to be auctioned near the end of a Decorative Arts sale – and likely would pull in a lot more money than she was willing to spend – and we left early. I encouraged her to leave a bid, but she didn’t.

I was curious about the bronzes and the maker. The auction house described the pieces as Vienna bronzes, “youthful male and female figures,” signed by T. Curts. The dancers looked black to us, based on their detailed facial features.   

In my research, I found that T. Curts was a pseudonym for a noted Austrian sculptor named Carl Kauba, who was born in Vienna in 1865 and died in 1922. He was known for his bronzes of the American West – Native Americans and cowboys – although there is some debate over whether he ever visited this country. One account said that he did, and was also inspired by the German writer Carl May, who wrote about the West, and the stories of photographers and illustrators. Others say he never did. I found very little definitive background information on Kauba.

Kauba was also known for what were called “naughties,” or mechanical erotic sculptures. Jennmaur Gallery in San Francisco, whose website has examples of his works, noted that the most collectible and rarest of his naughties was “Metamorphosis (circa 1910),” a colorful nude butterfly woman in bronze. Another piece I saw on the web was a female figure whose metal dress could be slipped off, exposing her nudity.  

The sculptor also used the named Karl Thenn, according to the gallery, most likely to avoid copyright issues since he worked for several foundries (the bronzes at auction had the inscription “Copyright Thenn Vienna”). He apparently cast his clay models at local foundries after fashioning them at a studio in his home.

Some of his bronzes were imported to the United States between 1895 and 1912, and cast at a New York foundry.

How Kauba came across two black children doing the cakewalk was a mystery I couldn’t solve. The cakewalk was pretty popular in minstrel shows in the late 1800s and at the turn of the century.

His depiction of the children were not stereotypical but natural – much unlike the way blacks were portrayed around the same time in this country. There was movement in the pieces, and these children were having fun. The boy had a smile on his face, and the girl tilted her head, her eyes closed, her thoughts focused on the cakewalk steps.

What complimentary images could he have seen of black children doing the cakewalk? Did he intentionally decide not to mimic the common portrayal of blacks at the turn of the century? I’d love to know.

These were apparently not the only bronze cakewalk figures he did of black children. I found others signed by Kauba himself on the websites of another gallery and auction house. 

This was an interesting and unusual find for me, especially after coming across the cakewalk postcards. They would have been a nice companion to Janet’s postcard collection. I’m not sure if they would have been affordable because I found that Kauba’s bronzes sell for thousands of dollars. I know, though, that at auction most things can be gotten for much less. Just depends on who wants them at a given time.

NOTE: I found out later that the Kauba cakewalk bronzes sold for $325.

Related posts:

1. Cakewalk images demystified
2. Cakewalk postcards at auction
3. A baby sculpted in bronze

Among the lot were four prized cards: Pictures of two lovely black couples from around the turn of the century doing the cakewalk. Not just doing the cakewalk but demonstrating how to do it.   

I saw the cards for the first time as we sat through an auction of glassware. I chuckled because they were so neat and amusing. They were also very complimentary. It’s not often that you find postcards from that era that show black people in a positive light. The couples were all dandied up in their finest dress, and the colors were both glossy and matte. 

The cards were also exciting because I could actually feel movement in the way the women pointed first their left foot out and then their right, danced with their shoulders and marched alongside the men, their arms intertwined. 

The dance sides of the card were imprinted: Cake Walk (Negro Dance) No. 1, No. 2, No.3, No.4. Franz Huld, Publisher, N.Y.

Someone had written the name Eugenie in ink. Eugenie was apparently the sender.

The address side included a cutout of one of the black men, with this imprinted on the card:

Private Mailing Card
Authorized by Act of Congress of May 19-1898.
(“Postal Card. – Carte Postale.”)
This side is exclusively for the address

The card was addressed to: Monsieur Maurice Remes, Marche au lait, 3. It was signed with the initials E / V. The 1-cent stamped appeared to be Belgian, and the date – a bit obscured – appeared to be 1904.

When I researched the cakewalk on the web, it seemed that the couple on the card were doing a stripped-down version of the dance, which made sense for the limited space. The dance I saw in photos and especially on early jerky film was high-energy, with rubber-legged men and quick-stepping couples.

Cakewalk the dance began as something called the chalk line walk around the mid-1800s, when Southern slaves walked a line with buckets of water on their heads, according to the site streetswing.com. By the end of the century, it had evolved into the cakewalk, a parody of the formal European ballroom dances enjoyed by slave owners. The dancers used “dignified walking, flirting, prancing, strutting, bowing low, waving canes, doffing hats, done in a high kicking grand promenade,”  according to the website. The slaveowners apparently found it amusing, and began sponsoring contests.

The husband and wife team of Charles Johnson and Dora Dean helped popularize the dance around 1890, incorporating it into their vaudeville act. Entertainers Bert Williams and George Walker also used it in their act.

The dance and the music accompanying it were a hit among whites, too, at the turn of the century. John Philip Sousa used the music in some of his marches, and Claude Debussey wrote the “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” as the final movement in his suite “Children’s Corner” in 1908. By the 1920s, the cakewalk had died out.

In his “Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” in 1912, James Weldon Johnson wrote of seeing the cakewalk at a ball:

“There was a contest for a gold watch, to be awarded to the hotel head-waiter receiving the greatest number of votes. There was some dancing while the votes were being counted. Then the floor was cleared for the cake-walk. A half-dozen guests from some of the hotels took seats on the stage to act as judges, and twelve or fourteen couples began to walk for a sure enough, highly decorated cake, which was in plain evidence.

“The spectators crowded about the space reserved for the contestants and watched them with interest and excitement. The couples did not walk round in a circle, but in a square, with the men on the inside. The fine points to be considered were the bearing of the men, the precision with which they turned the corners, the grace of the women, and the ease with which they swung around the pivots. The men walked with stately and soldierly step, and the women with considerable grace.

“The judges arrived at their decision by a process of elimination. The music and the walk continued for some minutes; then both were stopped while the judges conferred; when the walk began again, several couples were left out. In this way the contest was finally narrowed down to three or four couples. Then the excitement became intense; there was much partisan cheering as one couple or another would execute a turn in extra elegant style.

“When the cake was finally awarded, the spectators were about evenly divided between those who cheered the winners and those who muttered about the unfairness of the judges. This was the cake-walk in its original form, and it is what the colored performers on the theatrical stage developed into the prancing movements now known all over the world, and which some Parisian critics pronounced the acme of poetic motion.”

Related posts:

1. Cakewalk images demystified
2. Doing the cakewalk – in bronze
3. Christmas postcards at auction