Pauline Duvernay as the Naiad in The Sleeping Beauty. Lithograph coloured by hand by W Sharp after a drawing by Novello, 1833.

On a shore scattered with shells with a grey sea and sky and cliffs to the right, a dancer stands on point, stepping from her right to left leg, the body facing to her left, her head inclined and turned to look at the viewer. Her arms are crossed over her breast. On her head is a coronet of 'coral' and around her neck, two strings of pearls; pearls bands are on her wrists and upper arms. Her off-the-shoulder white dress has frills over the upper arm and is fitted at the waist. The knee-length skirt has a shorter overskirt, decorated to the edge with springs of a tiny red and green plant. Her feet are bound with blue ribbon to give the impression of point shoes. The print area is cut across the upper corners.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

The ballet The Sleeping Beauty was mounted especially for the London debut of Pauline Duvernay in 1833.
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.

W Sharp after a drawing by Novello, 1833.

The ballet The Sleeping Beauty was mounted especially for the London debut of Pauline Duvernay in 1833. As the plot requires the Princess Iseult to be asleep for a good part of the action, an extra scene was introduced in which Duvernay appeared as a water nymph. The water theme is carried into her costume in the coral coronet and the water plant trim on the dress. And no ballerina of the time would have appeared without her pearl necklace and bracelets.
Duverney's solo was so successful that surviving prints of her in this ballet show her as the Naiad, not as the Princess. She became a great favourite with London audiences. The teenage Princess (later Queen) Victoria, was an especial fan and often drew Duvernay in her art lessons. She retired from the stage in 1837 and married Stephens Lyne Stephens, supposedly the wealthiest commoner in England.

E.4998-1968