Fanny Elssler dancing the Cachucha from Jean Coralli's ballet Le Diable boîteux. Biscuit, 1840s.

Full length female figure standing on oval base supported by a rose covered column, the left arm held behind, the right curved forward above the head, holding castanets and with the right foot raised forward. She is wearing a low necked bodice trimmed at the neck with loose ribbon, lace to the shoulders and flowers to either side; the elbow length sleeves are 'creased' and trimmed with a frill; the bodice is overlaid with a 'net' and trimmed with rows of tiny 'buttons' down centre front and sides and down centre back; the lower edge is trimmed with lace and around the waist is a loose sash ribbon tied in a bow at the front. The undecorated skirt falls to below the knee. The head is inclined to the right and the hair is severely dressed and pulled back into plaits which are wound round the falling loose hair at the back of the head; to the back of the head is a leaf and berry wreath.

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

Fanny Elssler created the role of Florinda in Jean Coralli's ballet "Le Diable boîteux" in 1836 at the Paris Opera and danced it in London later the same year. It became the role most closely associated with Elssler and an iconic image of the Romantic Ballet.
The figure is an alternative, and possibly earlier, version of the Barre figurine of Elssler in the same pose and role, but this version has a much simpler skirt, undecorated and unpetticoated, which relates it more obviously to the Romantic Ballet 'uniform' tutu and to the Taglioni Sylphide figure, to which this is the companion piece.
The figurine came to the museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest.

Historical significance: One of the 'iconic' images of the Romantic Ballet. Elssler personified the alternative attributes of the Romantic Ballet, against Taglioni's air and spirit, she was fire and earth, and this figure captures her in her defining role.

This figurine shows Fanny Elssler (1810-1844) dancing the Cachucha which she danced as Florinda in Jean Coralli's ballet Le Diable Boîteux in 1836 at the Paris Opera and in London later the same year. It became the role most closely associated with Elssler and an iconic image of the Romantic Ballet.

The figurine has been attributed to the French sculptor Jean Auguste Barre as an alternative, and possibly earlier, version of his figurine of Elssler in the same pose and role. This version however has a much simpler skirt, undecorated and unpetticoated, which relates it more obviously to the Romantic Ballet 'uniform' tutu and to the Taglioni Sylphide figure, to which this is the companion piece. Fanny Elssler was born in Vienna where she performed from an early age, but she was still a teenager when she was dancing to great acclaim in Berlin, Paris and London.

S.869-1981