ca. 1820 (published)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This print shows a fashionable assembly room of the 18th and 19th centuries, a public building where balls, meetings, gambling and private functions were held. Some, like Almaks in London charged a subscription fee which entitled members to a weekly ball with supper during the London season. The fees might be low, but prospective members often had to run the gauntlet of a formidable committee of women who could make or break someone’s social standing, irrespective of rank or money; the Duke of Wellington was once turned away because he was seven minutes late and wearing trousers instead of breeches.
Not all Assembly Rooms and pleasure gardens were so demanding about their clientele. The unfashionable dress of the fat man at the door implies a country bumpkin and the figure next to him may be introducing him to the pleasures of the town - a popular subject in 18th and early 19th century literature and prints. A man and his money could be easily parted in the public assembly rooms and pleasure gardens where people met, often masked or in fancy dress, to dance, gamble, eat and make generally merry. Many acquired a disreputable reputation and by the mid-19th century, their heyday was over.
Not all Assembly Rooms and pleasure gardens were so demanding about their clientele. The unfashionable dress of the fat man at the door implies a country bumpkin and the figure next to him may be introducing him to the pleasures of the town - a popular subject in 18th and early 19th century literature and prints. A man and his money could be easily parted in the public assembly rooms and pleasure gardens where people met, often masked or in fancy dress, to dance, gamble, eat and make generally merry. Many acquired a disreputable reputation and by the mid-19th century, their heyday was over.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Lithograph |
| Brief description | A costume ball with figures including Don Quixote, Falstaff, Neptune and Diana. Lithograph, first quarter 19th century |
| Physical description | A public assembly room, the roof supported by Corinthian columns with a scroll frieze and garlanded walls; by the columns hang chandeliers. At either side is a heavy studded door partly concealed by heavy draped and hanging curtains. Centre back is a smaller double studded door, the proper right door open; above is an alcove in which an orchestra is playing. Before the centre doors stands a fat man dressed in country clothes; at his side, a small thin man in 18th century dress with a pigtail, points to the other people in the room. Across the centre of the print is an assembly of people in fancy dress, including jockeys, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, figures in Venetian masks and cloaks, a herald with trumpet, Falstaff, a 'Neptune' figure with trident, a man in Asian clothes, a woman dressed in classical dress with crescent and quiver (Diana) and a dancing master with violin. |
| Dimensions |
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| Credit line | Given by Dame Marie Rambert |
| Object history | The print is part of the collection of dance prints amassed by Marie Rambert and her husband, Ashley Dukes in the first half of the 20th century. Eventually numbering 145 items, some of which had belonged to the ballerina Anna Pavlova, it was one of the first and most important specialist collections in private hands. Rambert bought the first print as a wedding present but could not bear to give it away. As the collection grew, it was displayed in the bar of the Mercury Theatre, the headquarters of Ballet Rambert, but in 1968, Rambert gave the collection to the Victoria and Albert Museum; seven duplicates were returned to Rambert, but these are catalogued in Ivor Guest's A Gallery of Romantic Ballet, which was published before the collection came to the V&A. Although often referred to as a collection of Romantic Ballet prints, there are also important engravings of 17th and 18th century performers, as well as lithographs from the later 19th century, by which time the great days of the ballet in London and Paris were over. Historical significance: One of a series of six untitled prints in the Rambert-Dukes collection relating to costume balls in public assembly rooms, ca. 1820. |
| Summary | This print shows a fashionable assembly room of the 18th and 19th centuries, a public building where balls, meetings, gambling and private functions were held. Some, like Almaks in London charged a subscription fee which entitled members to a weekly ball with supper during the London season. The fees might be low, but prospective members often had to run the gauntlet of a formidable committee of women who could make or break someone’s social standing, irrespective of rank or money; the Duke of Wellington was once turned away because he was seven minutes late and wearing trousers instead of breeches. Not all Assembly Rooms and pleasure gardens were so demanding about their clientele. The unfashionable dress of the fat man at the door implies a country bumpkin and the figure next to him may be introducing him to the pleasures of the town - a popular subject in 18th and early 19th century literature and prints. A man and his money could be easily parted in the public assembly rooms and pleasure gardens where people met, often masked or in fancy dress, to dance, gamble, eat and make generally merry. Many acquired a disreputable reputation and by the mid-19th century, their heyday was over. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.4975-1968 |
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| Record created | September 2, 2004 |
| Record URL |
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