The Cirque Medrano is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

, that was located at 63 Boulevard Rochechouart, at the corner of rue des Martyrs, on the edge of Montmartre

Montmartre

Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. It was originally called Cirque Fernando. The circus is now a travelling circus touring across the world.

History

The family Cirque Fernando was linked to the British travelling circus family Robert Austen Brothers. This link led to Cirque Fernando changing its name and becoming a European travelling circus. The name Robert Austens Mediterrean Circus became MedRAno.
Medrano was also the name of a Spanish clown employed at the Cirque Fernando in Paris.
Past performers have included Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

 together with his wife Eleanor as a double act between 1947 and 1954 http://www.takkinen.se/Articles/Originals/index.html, Annie Fratellini

Annie Fratellini

Annie Fratellini was a French circus clown and film actress.She was born Annie Violette Fratellini in Algiers, Algeria to a Pied-noir family of Italian descent. The fourth generation of one of Europe's most famous circus families, The Fratellini Family. Her father was Victor Fratellini. Her...

, and Arthur Vercoe Pedlar

Arthur Vercoe Pedlar

Arthur Vercoe Pedlar is a British clown.Arthur Pedlar was born into a Congregational family and lives in Southport. He was educated at Leighton Park School in Reading, Berkshire, England, a Quaker school. He first became interested in clowns when he visited Bertram Mills Circus in 1938...

.

Cirque Medrano in the arts

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...

, the French Impressionist artist, painted Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando is a painting by Edgar Degas, the French Impressionist artist, now in the collection of the National Gallery in London, England. It shows the acrobat Miss La La hanging on a rope by her teeth at the Cirque Fernando in Montmartre, Paris.The painting was bought by...

in 1879, now in the National Gallery in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=ng4121. Auguste Renoir, another Impressionist artist, painted Jugglers at the Cirque Fernando http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/renoir/p-renoir1.htm. In the late 19th century, the Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

ian post-impressionist artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec also attended the Cirque Medrano and produced pictures based on it http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/SELDES/ch19.html.

External links

• Cirque Medrano video on YouTube
  YouTube
  YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....