The bearded woman of Versoix gets her book back
Journalist Nic Ulmi has written a book about Joséphine Clofullia, a 19th-century Genevan who toured the world exhibiting her beard, after stumbling on her story by chance.
A daguerreotype taken in 1856 in a photo studio in St. Louis, Missouri, shows a woman in her twenties dressed and coiffed in the fashion of the day, with one striking exception: a thick black beard covering her cheeks and chin. The woman is Joséphine Clofullia, born in or around Versoix, on Lake Geneva, according to Le Temps.
Between 1850 and 1870, Clofullia travelled the world exhibiting her facial hair, part of the era's circuit of human curiosities. Journalist Nic Ulmi came across her story a few years ago, more or less by chance, and has now turned it into a book, which Le Temps describes as both joyful and gripping.
The newspaper's account does not give further detail on the book's title, publisher or contents beyond Clofullia's itinerant career as a performer of her own difference. Le Temps frames the find as a rediscovery of a local figure whose life crossed continents at a moment when such bodies were put on public display for profit.
Le Temps also points readers to an earlier piece on the same subject, headlined "La femme à barbe vient de Versoix" ("The bearded woman comes from Versoix"), suggesting the newspaper has followed Clofullia's story for some time before Ulmi's book appeared.
Sources
This article was written from these reports.
