Ballet Graces, No. 2. Lithograph with traces of colour wash, mid 19th century

A dancer stands in a landscape with ruins of Greek temples. She stands facing the viewer with the weight on her left leg, the right leg forward with foot pointed; her arms are held above her head, with is slightly tilted to her right. Her hair is dress in two plaits and on her head she wears a small 'fez' with tassels. Her white sleeveless overdress has a frilled scoop neck, and a diaphanous bell-shaped skirt reaching below the knee, and fastens down the front with decorative clasps; under is a white dress reaching to above the knee. A striped scarf with a hint of pink wash is knotted around her waist. Over the bodice she wears a dark blue tinted bolero jacket with epaulettes, finishing at the lower edge in decorative tassels. The print is cut across the corners

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

The print is one of a series, the total number of which is unknown; the Rambert-Dukes Collection contains numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5.
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.

This print is one of a series of ballet dancers, published in the mid 19th century. The subjects are not named dancers, nor probably even drawn from life - they are simply 'ballet dancers'. The image of the dancer crystallised in the 1840s, creating an image that would transcend time and fashion - sleeked-down hair, pointed, low-necked bodice, or a laced bodice over a small blouse, and knee or calf-length bell-shaped skirt formed of tiers of tarlatan, with a diaphanous top layer. So strong was the image that, even today, people who have never see a ballet would recognize these prints as 'ballet dancers.' To create dancers from various countries, characteristic trims or accessories were added to the basic costume. Even without the classical temple in the landscape, the fez, jacket and knotted scarf place this dancer in Greece or the near East.

E.5069-1968