Photographie originale représentant Edith Piaf enlacée par Norbert Glanzberg aux côtés d'Alice et Carlo Rim dans le port de Cassis en 1940

Original photograph depicting Édith Piaf embraced by Norbert Glanzberg next to Alice and Carlo Rim in the port of Cassis in 1940
Original photograph depicting Edith Piaf embraced and kissed on the neck by the composer Norbert Glanzberg, then a refugee in France, with, to their right, Alice and Carlo Rim, the latter slightly set back, the first three being perched on a low wall, contemporary silver print. While Edith Piaf and Alice Rim are all smiling, Carlo Rim is the only one to take an ironically solemn break, standing almost to attention and with his eyes closed.

Back in France, to the free zone, after having been demobilised from the Polish army, Norbert Glanzberg met Félix Marouani who hired him for Édith Piaf's tours. This is the beginning of a fruitful and intense collaboration, Norbert Glanzberg composed the music of several of Edith Piaf's most famous songs, such as “Padam, padam”... and “Mon manège à moi”.
Details handwritten in pencil by Carlo Rim on the back of the photograph: “Édith Piaf, Norbert Glansberg [sic], Alice Carlo Rim, Carlo Rim à Cassis 1940.”In its newspaper Le Grenier d'Arlequin 1916-1940, Carlo Rim recounts the first Édith Piaf concert he attended: “9 December 1935. La môme Piaf, at Gerny's where the smart set begin to flock to listen to her. Some small woman, humble and pitiful in her cheap black dress. The hounded air of someone who has just received a good beating. But we barely only see, in the brutal light of the spotlight, her huge white forehead, her child-like hands clenched on her chest or pressed against her thighs like a starfish. Muffled, as if choked with tears, her voice elevates, rises, tears off into an interminable cry of a mortally wounded animal, an almost inhuman voice that takes you by the throat, grabs your heart – a voice that feels misery and disturbance. And in that moment, la môme Piaf becomes the most beautiful girl in the world.”Provenance: Carlo Rim, then his son Jean-Pierre Richard. A Provençal writer, caricaturist and filmmaker, Carlo Rim was the friend and confident of many of the greatest artists and authors of the 20th century: Antonin Artaud, Marcel Pagnol, Fernandel, Raimu, Max Jacob, Tristan Bernard, Jacques Prévert...