Portrait of Louise Fleury as Beatrix in The Beauty of Ghent. Published in London by Messrs Fores on 1st April 1844.

The dancer stands on pointe facing quarter left, her left hand resting on a bow, her right elbow resting on the left hand and her hand at her chin; her head is turned to face the viewer but her eyes are cast down. On her severely dressed hair is a gold fillet with a crescent moon and from her ears hang star earrings; on her arms are gold bands and bracelets. Her palest pink fitted bodice has a pointed front, with off the shoulder neckline continuing into short sleeves. Across the bodice is a blue strap supporting a red quiver with arrows on her back. The white diaphanous knee-length skirt has three white bands around the hem and a white open-fronted shorter overskirt decorated with stars. Over the side of the skirt hangs long sash tails with fringed ends. On her feet are ballet slippers.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

The print shows Louise Fleury as Beatrix in Albert's ballet The Beauty of Ghent, which she danced at Drury Lane in 1844. She is dressed for the pas de Diane in Act II which Beatrix dances as a challenge to Diana, a professional dancer and her rival in love.
The print is numbered 2, which indicates that it was one of a series. The style and publisher are the same as the image of Clara Webster, E.5066-1968, and may be part of the same series, although both prints bear the number 2.
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.

Portrait of Louise Fleury as Beatrix in The Beauty of Ghent. Published in London by Messrs Fores on 1st April 1844.

Albert’s ballet La Jolie fille de Gand was first seen in Paris in 1842 and Louise Fleury appeared as Beatrix in the ballet when it was first seen in London in 1844.
The crescent moon, bow and quiver of arrows identify the character as Diana, Greek goddess of the moon and the hunt. In the ballet The Beauty of Ghent, the highspot was the pas de Diane, danced by the heroine, Beatrix, at a masked ball.
Fleury stands on pointe (on the tips of her toes). This is first recorded as an acrobatic trick in the 1820s, but by the early 1830s it was an essential part of the ballerina’s technique and choreographers were using it expressively to suggest character and mood. The shoes gave little support, the only stiffening being a little darning at the back of the toes; the modern pointe shoe, with its flat, blocked toe, did not develop until much later in the 19th century

E.5011-1968