Miss Lala

Miss La La (April 21, 1858 - March 21, 1945) was an Afro-German aerialist who served as muse to Edgar Degas and was depicted in his 1879 painting Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando. She was also depicted in a poster for the Folies Bergère. She was the star of Troupe Kaira, a traveling circus act, and performed with the Cirque Fernando, based in Montmartre. or Olga Brown in the then German/Prussian territory of Stettin (now Szczecin) to a black father and white mother. She was the fifth child of Marie Christine Borchardt, a German Jew (related to the circus owner Willy Borchardt), and William Wilhelm Brown, most likely a freedman from USA or United Kingdom. She played venues such as the Folies Bergère in Paris, the Royal Aquarium in London, and the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester. Another signature stunt involved hoisting other people or a 200-pound cannon with her teeth. She was also known for her stunt of being hoisted up to her trapeze by her teeth. The couple had three daughters who also became performers, forming a trio called The Three Keziahs. Edgar Degas's portrait of her hangs in the National Gallery in London, England. Since 1937, the portrait has appeared in a variety of exhibitions at a number of venues, including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. In 2018, the portrait was loaned to the Weston Park Museum in Sheffield, England for an exhibit about black circus performers in the series Circus! Show of Shows.