Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide (Les Danseuses de l'Opéra, No. 1). Lithograph coloured by hand by Alophe, ca.1860.

The dancer stands on point on her right foot, the left stretched out behind; her right arm is outstretched and her left bent upwards, the hand touching her left shoulder; her head is turned to look across her left shoulder. On her head is a coronet of blue and pink flowers and foliage; she wears pearl drop earrings, pearl bracelets and armbands and a three-string pearl necklace. Her white, knee-length dress has a vertically pleated bodice, falling loosely at the off-the-shoulder neckline, with wide cap sleeves; The diaphanous top-skirt, waist and right shoulder are decorated with sprigs of blue, pink and white flowers with foliage. At her back are wings. Her feet are bound with ribbons to suggest ballet slippers and crossed ribbons.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

Marie Taglioni was the greatest ballerina of the 19th century and the Sylph in La Sylphide her most famous role. At a time when many men idealised women, her performance as the Sylph became a symbol of ideal womanhood - feminine, spiritual, ethereal and unattainable.
The print is No. 1 in the series, Les Danseuses de l'Opera, published ca. 1860. There were 14 in total, all the work of Alophe. Although published in 1860, when Taglioni was teaching at the Paris Opera, the print is a copy of an 1830 image.
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.

Marie Taglioni was the greatest ballerina of the 19th century and the Sylph in La Sylphide her most famous role. At a time when many men idealised women, her performance as the Sylph became a symbol of ideal womanhood - feminine, spiritual, ethereal and unattainable.
Although published in 1860, when Taglioni was teaching at the Paris Opera, the print is a copy of an 1830 image. The dress follows the outlines of fashionable dress of the 1830s, and it is this costume, with various modifications, that becomes the 'uniform' for the ballerina - low-necked, fitted bodice, swathes around the upper arm and bell-shaped calf-length skirt. Even the shoes are essentially fashionable heelless slippers, with a little extra darning behind the toes to give a little support. The modern blocked pointe shoe did not develop until later in the 19th century.

E.5054-1968