Carolina Rosati was one of the great dramatic dancers of the mid 19th century, excelling in quick, precise movements, a difficult style to capture in a still image, but this print gives an idea of her lively movement, considerable spirit and vivacious elegance. It suggests why she was, at the time and for a long time afterwards, the highest paid dancer ever at the Paris Opera.

Fiorita was an inconsequential ballet about an evil spirit who falls in love with a moral and entices him away to her enchanted garden. His beloved, danced by Rosati, searches for him and leaves a nosegay, as a token of remembrance. The plot turned on the waters of oblivion, which were used to make first one character, then another, forget their past, and which eventually rolled over the ballet itself. The nosegay in the print may be the one dropped by Fiorita or may suggest flowers thrown on stage by an admirer.