Marianna De Lahaye

Welcome to the Magic Poster Tour at Poe’s Magic Theatre, inside the historic Lord Baltimore Hotel.

This stop features Miss Marianna De Lahaye, Magic and Illusion, a circa 1900 piece billed as “Magie & Illusion.”

Miss Marianna De Lahaye appears in a red costume among flowers, birds, cages, and a circular stage scene. French lettering identifies the act as magic and illusion, while the huge name on a ribbon anchors the lower half of the poster.

The design promises several kinds of spectacle at once: conjuring, trained birds, costume, and a theatrical tableau. Its bright colors and densely packed details reward a slow look. Every open patch of paper seems to have been recruited into the performance.

This glare-free digital restoration is based on the framed poster photograph at Poe’s Magic Theatre; small details obscured by reflections have been reconstructed.

Marianna De Lahaye was promoted as a magician and illusionist in European touring publicity. Surviving posters connect her act with bird effects and elaborate stage imagery, though the details of her biography are less firmly documented than those of the best-known male headliners of her era.

That uneven record is part of what the poster tells us. It preserves her name, image, and the kind of show she wanted audiences to expect, even when the paper trail around the performer herself thins out. The woman at center stage remains easier to see than the history that should have followed her.