Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide. Lithograph coloured by hand after a drawing by Devéria.

A dancer skims above the ground between two rose bushes. She is barefoot, with her left leg forward and her right raised to the back; her left arm is held down with the right bent with the hand raised; her head is turned and inclined slightly to her right. On her severely dressed hair is a coronet of flowers and at her back are wings with peacock eyes. Her off-the-shoulder, diaphanous white dress has cap sleeves streaked with blue and a blue ribbon is tied around her waist, finishing at the front in a bow with tails; her knee-length skirt is almost transparent.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

Marie Taglioni was the greatest ballerina of the 19th century. Her father choreographed La Sylphide in 1832 to show off his daughter's qualities using the newly developed technique of dancing on the tips of the toes (on pointe), which he used to suggest the Sylph as a spirit of the air and her unearthly delicacy. Taglioni danced the role all over Europe and it became a symbol of ideal womanhood - feminine, spiritual, ethereal and unattainable.
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.

Paris Goupil et Vibert, 134 Boulevard Montmartre et rue de Lancry

Marie Taglioni was the greatest ballerina of the 19th century. She was not only a great dancer. At a time when many men idealised women, her performance as the Sylph in La Sylphide became a symbol of ideal womanhood - feminine, spiritual, ethereal and unattainable.
Taglioni's father choreographed La Sylphide in 1832 to show off his daughter's qualities using the newly developed technique of dancing on the tips of the toes (on pointe), which he used to suggest the Sylph as a spirit of the air and her unearthly delicacy. Before Taglioni, pointe work had been a technical trick, now it became an expression of character. She would never have appeared barefoot on stage. Her shoes were essentially fashionable heelless evening slippers, and the only extra support was given by stitching across the back of the toes.
Taglioni's costume as the Sylph was originally an adaptation of fashionable dress of the early 1830s, with cap sleeves, bell skirt and low neck. The ballet was so successful that this dress became a 'uniform' for the dancer and if the popular view of a ballerina is a dancer standing on tiptoe, with severely parted hair and bell-shaped skirt and very low neckline, it is due to Taglioni's success as the Sylph in 1832.

E.5047-1968