Ballet Beauties, No. 2. Lithograph coloured by hand by Aubril after a drawing by Guérard, second half 19th century

On a stage, a dancer stands on tip-toe on her left foot, her right raised forward, the foot pointed; her body is in profile to the right, her right arm is curved over her head and her left is curved at waist level; in her hands she holds castanets. Her head is inclined to her left and she is looking down; a rose is fixed on the left side of her head, above her loose, waved hair. Her shirt-sleeved bodice is coloured blue and a neckline white frill is visible down her back and front; the below-the-knee white skirt has a bow with long tails at centre front waist and a deep frill to the hem, topped with a blue ribbon.

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.

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, was created in the1840s - 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.' In this print, the castanets and rose in the hair indicate a Spanish dance.

E.5068-1968