Madame Céleste in The Maid of Cashmere. Lithograph by A Picken after a drawing by E T Parris, 1837.

In a wooded landscape with poplars and palm trees, a dancer stands with her body turned to the left, weight on her right leg, her left to the back with foot pointed; her hands are crossed over her breast and her head is inclined and turned to look over her right shoulder. Her severely styled hair is dressed with a central lozenge-shaped jewel, and over her ears stick out circles of drop pearls from which hang square lozenges trimmed with pearls. On her left arm is an eye-catching bracelet. Her low, wide necked dress reaches to below the knee; the skirt is banded from hem to lower hip, the full cap sleeves are trimmed with a deep flounce of lace and over her left shoulder is a striped scarf, which is caught into a belt at the waist, and streams out over the skirt.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

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.

Céline Céleste was an extremely popular French-born dancer and actress, a great favourite of audiences in London and New York in the mid 19th century. In the mid-century, she also became managed the Adelphi and later the Lyceum theatre for her partner, theatre manager Ben Webster. Her long-standing relationship Webster was such an accepted fact in theatrical circles that when a racehorse named after him sired a filly foal, she was christened Madame Céleste.
The print celebrates Céleste's performance in The Maid of Cashmere, which, as its title suggests, had an Indian setting. All the elements of Céleste's costume - the lozenge-shaped head ornament, the circle drop earrings, heavy bracelet and the striped scarf caught at the waist - come from authentic Indian dress, but have been simplified into a stylized stage costume which audiences would recognise as 'Indian'.

E.4987-1968