Clara Webster as Nancy in Lady Henrietta or The Statute Fair. Lithograph coloured by hand by J Brandard, 1845.

A dancer stands on her right leg, her left pointed to the front; her body faces the viewer and her right hand is on her hip, her left arm bent and out with the hand upturned. On her severely dressed hair, on the left hand side of her head, is fixed black hat with a tiny truncated cone crown and small brim covered with roses and, underneath a lace trim; blue ribbons cascade from the side. She wears a low, wide-necked white blouse, over which is an open-fronted, short-sleeved black bodice, trimmed with white, the pointed front finished with a knot of looped blue ribbon with tails which waft across the blue, bell-shaped, knee-length skirt. On her feet are black ballet slippers with ribbons.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

This lithograph, published after Webster's death, records her in Joseph Mazilier's ballet Lady Henrietta or The Statute Fair, in which she appeared in 1844. It is number 5 of an unnamed series.
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 over 130 items, 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. Although it is often referred to as the Rambert-Dukes collection of Romantic Ballet prints, it includes 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.

Clara Webster was the white hope of British dance in the 1840s, the only English dancer who, it was felt, could become a rival to the great foreign ballerinas. It was not to be. In 1844, during a performance of The Revolt of the Harem, Clara's flimsy ballet skirts caught against one of the open gas jets that were used to light the stage in the days before electricity. She died three days later from her burns. Although there were ways of fireproofing fabrics, many dancers refused to use them as they stiffened the skirts and destroyed the ethereal illusion.
This lithograph, published after Webster's death, records her in the ballet Lady Henrietta or The Statute Fair, in which she appeared in 1844. It is impossible to guess from her costume that the ballet was set in the period of Queen Anne. It was very lavishly staged, but was unremittingly boring and was hissed and booed on the first night. The only redeeming features were the young Lucile Grahn in the title role and Clara Webster as her companion, Nancy.

E.5066-1968