Zazel, In Repose

Rare image of the young acrobat and first of the "Human Cannonballs," Zazel. Here she is at 14 years old, stretched out on a divan in the studio, wearing a dress, wild hair and great black slipper boots. Rossa Matilda Richter, known as Zazel, was first launched in 1877 at the Royal Aquarium in London, and was a protege of the inventor of the device, the great showman and former equilibrist and acrobat, William Leonard Hunt ("The Great Farini").