Marie Taglioni. Lithograph coloured by hand by B Mulrenin, 1834.

The dancer stands on her right leg with foot turned out, her right leg stretched forward with foot pointed; her arms are held out loosely at waist height and her body is turned slightly to her right; her head is turned back looking over her left shoulder. Low on her hair is a coronet of pale pink roses. Her low-necked off the shoulder white dress has loose frill sleeves; around the waist is a palest pink belt. The knee-length skirt, the neckline and sleeves are edged with palest pink. Her feet are bound with gold ribbon, crossed on the instep ballet-style, with the toe-section tinted palest blue.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

Chaffee in The Romantic Ballet in London (Dance Index September-December 1943):
Printed by C. Hullmandel, London and published in September 1834 by Ackermann & Co, and in Paris by Rittner & Goupil.
Marie Taglioni was the greatest ballerina of the 19th century. 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. The bare feet increase the impression of ethereality.
Showing the dancers of the 1830s and 1840s with bare feet is more usual in French, rather than English, prints.
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 most famous for her portrayal of ethereal, inhuman spirits. At a time when many men idealised women, her characters symbolised ideal womanhood - feminine, spiritual, ethereal and unattainable.
The dancer's arms seem extraordinarily long, but, this is an accurate depiction of Marie Taglioni. She was very thin, round-shouldered, with out of proportion arms, so her father devised special movements that minimised her defects. These included leaning slightly forward from the waist with the arms held crossed in front of her. Taglioni's success meant that the pose was taken up by other dancers and became almost a cliché of the Romantic ballet style.

E.5056-1968