Miirrha Alhambra

Who was Miirrha Alhambra?

Pauline Joutard was a French-born pianist who performed under the stage name Miirrha Alhambra.

Her sister Flora Joutard and she had studied in Bad Homburg before touring Europe and South America together in the early 1900s. A friend took her to Mérida to play where she would meet and marry her husband, Domingo Fernando Evia y Barbachano, a wealthy Mexican landowner who was a member of two families that have been prominent in the politics and culture of Yucatán since the mid 19th century, one of which, the Barbachanos, has been described as "one of the most powerful of Yucatán’s oligarchy.

She lived with her husband for some years in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. There she gave birth to her son Edgar Domingo Evia y Joutard, the future photographer known professionally as Edgar de Evia.

On 30 June 1912, she arrived with her husband and two-year-old son in New York City aboard the liner "Progreso" and lived in the United States for the rest of her life.