1900 Sarah Bernhardt in character as Theodora the Empress of Byzantium (Empress Theodora) in "Theodora: A Drama in Five Acts and Eight Tableau" (1885) by Victorien Sardou. Premiered: Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, France.
Sardou's enthusiasm for historical authenticity was shared by his star. Weeks before ordering her costumes, she journed to Ravenna and stood long hours in the Church of San Vitale studying the magnificent mosaics with their startling portraits of Theodora and Justinian staring menacingly forth from barbaric gold. She made sketches of every robe, every fold, every detail or ornamentation. When she returned to Paris she had completed in detail a dressmaker's design for each outfit, as well as those for her stage jeweller, even to that death-dealing hairpin. Her wardrobe along cost more than the average production. Her costumer figured out that toiling in her work rooms she and her assistants had sewn on by hand more than 4,500 'gems'. (x)
Her costume is a replica of the celebrated mosaic of the Byzantine Virgin in the Church of Ravenna -- her robe is yellow satin embroidered with topazes; her coiffure is ablaze with jewels, and in her hand she carries a white lily, which tradition says was Théodora's favourite flower. The Empress seats herself on a couch of tigers' skins, and gives audience to her courtiers and to ambassadors from foreign lands.