Fan given to Marie Taglioni (1804-1884) by the Empress Eugenie, bone, pearl, satin, paint and appliqued lace. With fan box

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

Attached to the fan by baby ribbon is a note in Margaret Rolfe's hand: "This fan was given to Marie Taglioni by the Empress Eugènie whose portrait in a lace dress is on the fan. The sticks are Chinese of curiously carved bone. The transparent carving in a double layer." The fan came stored in S.843:2-2001, although this may not have been the original fan box.
One of several fans in the Cyril Beaumont Collection owned by Marie Taglioni. The manipulation of the fan would have been an integral part of teaching social dance in the 1870s when Taglioni was teaching in London. It is part of a unique collection of memorabilia and personal effects which evoke the ballerina in the last decades of her life.
A collection of Taglioni memorabilia was amassed by Margaret Rolfe, the granddaughter of Taglioni's closest friend in London, Mrs Boggs Rolfe; she attended Taglioni's dancing classes and received many gifts of Taglioni memorabilia, from Taglioni herself, from her grandmother and from Taglioni's niece, Marguerite Troubetzkoi, after Taglioni's death. She kept these, with a series of related notes, in various boxes and annotated envelopes (filed separately). These she passed to Cyril Beaumont, probably for the London Archives of the Dance (a number of the objects were referred to in "The London Archives of the Dance and some of its Treasures" by Cyril Beaumont, Ballet Annual, first issue, Adam & Charles Black, London, 1947, p110); the Archives never achieved an independent home and part of the collection, including the Taglioni memorabilia, was stored with Cyril Beaumont, where it became inextricably mixed with his own collection and came to the Museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest.

S.843:1 to 2-2001