Melle Marquet, / dans Marco Spada
Print
ca. 1860 (printed and published)
ca. 1860 (printed and published)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Marco Spada was performed at the Paris Opera in 1857, a splendid piece of French Second Empire nonsense, featuring bandits, kidnapped heroines, lovers' misunderstandings, a rejected suitor who in a fit of pique agrees to marry someone he doesn't love and a bandit chief's daughter, freed to marry her lover when it transpires she was adopted. The subject was chosen because it provided two strong female roles for the Paris Opera Ballet's current stars, Carolina Rosati and Amalia Ferraris.
Such a complex story was almost impossible to convey in dance. Most memorable was the scene where the whole stage with thirty people, was raised, revealing an underground cavern beneath. After a series of accidents the dancers began carrying charms to ward off evil influences.
Today, Marco Spada is remembered from prints of minor soloists, including Louise Marquet, who were depicted in costumes from the ballet. Her dress follows the outlines of what has become a conventional ballet dress, given details and colouring characteristic of a particular country. Louise Marquet wears a flat headdress characteristic of Italian national dress.
By 1860, photography had become a viable commercial medium, and several of the prints in the series Les Danseuses de l'Opera seem to be copies of photographs. Maybe this was because most photographs were quite small and, of course, sepia toned; translated into lithographs, they could be larger and then hand coloured, making them more suitable for display.
Such a complex story was almost impossible to convey in dance. Most memorable was the scene where the whole stage with thirty people, was raised, revealing an underground cavern beneath. After a series of accidents the dancers began carrying charms to ward off evil influences.
Today, Marco Spada is remembered from prints of minor soloists, including Louise Marquet, who were depicted in costumes from the ballet. Her dress follows the outlines of what has become a conventional ballet dress, given details and colouring characteristic of a particular country. Louise Marquet wears a flat headdress characteristic of Italian national dress.
By 1860, photography had become a viable commercial medium, and several of the prints in the series Les Danseuses de l'Opera seem to be copies of photographs. Maybe this was because most photographs were quite small and, of course, sepia toned; translated into lithographs, they could be larger and then hand coloured, making them more suitable for display.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Melle Marquet, / dans Marco Spada (generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Lithograph coloured by hand |
| Brief description | Louise Marquet in Marco Spada (Les Danseuses de l'Opéra No. 5). Lithograph coloured by hand by Alophe, ca. 1860. |
| Physical description | The dancer stands with the body turned slightly to her left, the head turned towards her right. She stands on her right leg with the foot turned out and the right leg pointed to the back with the foot pointed; her right hand is on her hip and the left is down behind her skirt. On her head is a flat rectangle, striped yellow and green and edged with lace, from which a white lace panel hands down the back; her hair is trimmed with bold pale pink ribbon loops. Her white, high-necked blouse has full sleeves, which with fitted black 'oversleeves' from above the elbow to mid forearm, forcing the sleeves into puffs at upper arm and wrist' at the shoulders are yellow bows with long tails. The bodice fits around the bust forming a shallow upward point at centre front, and a point at the waist and is held by broad pink ribbon straps; the back and sides are black edged with gold and the front section is 'gold' overlaid with pink ribbon lacing. The full bell-skirt is yellow ochre with a dull blue band around the hem; over this are three white panels, decorated with groups of yellow green, blue and gray stripes; over the hips and back is an overskirt of pale maroon edged with gold and blue. |
| Dimensions |
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| Credit line | Given by Dame Marie Rambert |
| Object history | Marco Spada was performed at the Paris Opera in 1857 with choreography by Joseph Mazilier and music by Auber. Louise Marquet was a soloist at the Paris Opera in the 1850s. The print is No. 5 in the series, Les Danseuses de l'Opera, published ca. 1860. There were 14 in total, all the work of Alophe. 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. |
| Summary | Marco Spada was performed at the Paris Opera in 1857, a splendid piece of French Second Empire nonsense, featuring bandits, kidnapped heroines, lovers' misunderstandings, a rejected suitor who in a fit of pique agrees to marry someone he doesn't love and a bandit chief's daughter, freed to marry her lover when it transpires she was adopted. The subject was chosen because it provided two strong female roles for the Paris Opera Ballet's current stars, Carolina Rosati and Amalia Ferraris. Such a complex story was almost impossible to convey in dance. Most memorable was the scene where the whole stage with thirty people, was raised, revealing an underground cavern beneath. After a series of accidents the dancers began carrying charms to ward off evil influences. Today, Marco Spada is remembered from prints of minor soloists, including Louise Marquet, who were depicted in costumes from the ballet. Her dress follows the outlines of what has become a conventional ballet dress, given details and colouring characteristic of a particular country. Louise Marquet wears a flat headdress characteristic of Italian national dress. By 1860, photography had become a viable commercial medium, and several of the prints in the series Les Danseuses de l'Opera seem to be copies of photographs. Maybe this was because most photographs were quite small and, of course, sepia toned; translated into lithographs, they could be larger and then hand coloured, making them more suitable for display. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.5031-1968 |
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| Record created | September 27, 2004 |
| Record URL |
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