Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo. Engraving by Gatine after a drawing by Lanté, first half 19th century

Female dancer stepping from her right to her left foot, her body half turned right, her head turned to viewer with her right arm curved at shoulder height and her left bent with hand facing outwards on the hip. The hair is tightly plaited and she wears a tiny flat-crowned green hat with a tiny brim trimmed with an ostrich feather; around her neck is a small ruff. Her calf-length dress has a green fitted bodice, pointed centre front, edged in pink, with pink lacing across the white blouse down the front; the full, vertically ruched sleeves are bound at upper and lower arm with green ruches and finish at the cuff in green bows. The pink skirt is pleated to the back and trimmed at the lower edge with three rows of green ruching; down the front is an apron decorated with gold-stemmed roses. Her high-heeled shoes are tinted pink.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

Camargo was one of the best-known dancers of the mid 18th century, famous for her neat footwork and jumps, like entrechats, where the dancer jumps in the air and crosses the feet several times before landing. It is said that she was one of the first dancers to shorten the long 18th century skirts to show her feet and ankles, so that audiences could appreciate her technique. Camargo wears fashionable high-heeled shoes, so her feet were not as flexible as later dancers’ who, at the end of the 18th century, adopted the new fashion for heelless slippers that developed into today’s ballet shoes.
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.
The print was produced in the 19th century, probably for the Galerie des femmes célèbres françaises, for which Jouis-Marie Lanté produced the drawings which were engraved by Gatine.

Camargo was one of the best-known dancers of the mid 18th century, famous for her neat footwork and jumps, like entrechats, where the dancer jumps in the air and crosses the feet several times before landing. It is said that she was one of the first dancers to shorten the long 18th century skirts to show her feet and ankles, so that audiences could appreciate her technique. Camargo wears fashionable high-heeled shoes, so her feet were not as flexible as later dancers' who, at the end of the 18th century, adopted the new fashion for heelless slippers that developed into today's ballet shoes.
The print is not contemporary with Camargo. It was created in the 19th century for a book of portraits of famous French women.

E.4962-1968