Print depicting Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide (Souvenir d'adieu, No. 3). Lithograph coloured by hand by Edward Morton after a drawing by A. E. Chalon, 1845.

A dancer stands on the tips of her toes, her body facing slightly to her right, her right arm down with hand out and her left arm bent with ther index finger held just below the chin; her head is turned to her left and she looks over her shoulder to a figure outside the print. On her severely dressed hair is a coronet of palest yellow flowers. Her fitted, low-necked bodice continued over into short sleeves, and around the slightly pointed waist is a pale blue band; the bell-shaped diaphanous skirt is knee length. Around her neck, sleeves and on her wrists are rows of pearls and on her feet are palest pink ballet slippers.

Given by Dame Marie Rambert

The Souvenir d'adieu (Farewell Souvenir) was a series of six lithographs from drawings by A E Chalon marking Marie Taglioni's last performances in London in 1845. This image is number 3. It shows Taglioni as the Sylph, standing in characteristic pose on the tips of her toes (on pointe), one hand raised almost coyly to her chin and her lips gently curved in a gentle smile as she looks back to James, the young Scotsman with whom she has become fascinated. A complete Album d'Adieu + titlepage, was on offer in 1990 for $17,500 US.
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.

Historical significance: The print shows Marie Taglioni, greatest ballerina of her day, as the Sylph in La Sylphide. The ballet was choreographed by her father, Filippo Taglioni in 1832, to display her exquisite lightness and delicacy, which he expressed in the newly-developed technique of dancing on the tips of the toes (pointe work). Previously, this had been merely an acrobatic trick, but La Sylphide was the first ballet to use it expressively to show the ethereal nature of the Sylph.

The large souvenir prints of the Romantic ballet, issued in the 1830s and 1840s, are among the most evocative images of dance in the 19th century. Lithography, with its soft quality, enhanced by the delicate yet rich hand-colouring, was ideally suited to the subject - the ballerinas who dominated ballet in the mid-century and the romanticised settings in which they performed; style and subject were perfectly matched. The lithographs produced in London are notable for capturing the personality and style of individual performers in a theatrical setting. They are a fitting tribute to one of ballet's richest periods.
Before the development of colour printing, the basic black and white prints were hand coloured. There is often considerable variation from one print to another, both in colour and quality of the work. The most important souvenir prints, such as this one, would only have been sent out to the best colourists, and it is often very difficult to tell the best hand colouring from early colour printing. In the days before photography, such lithographs were expensive souvenirs, bought by the individual dancer's admirers.

Print depicting Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide (Souvenir d'adieu, No. 3). Lithograph coloured by hand by Edward Morton after a drawing by A. E. Chalon.

The print shows Marie Taglioni, greatest ballerina of her day, as the Sylph in La Sylphide. The ballet was choreographed by her father, Filippo Taglioni in 1832, to display her exquisite lightness and delicacy, which he expressed in the newly-developed technique of dancing on the tips of the toes (pointe work). Previously, this had been merely an acrobatic trick, but La Sylphide was the first ballet to use it expressively to show the ethereal nature of the Sylph.

It is difficult for us today to understand how sensational the technique of dancing on the tips of the toes was for audiences in the 1830s. It gave an impression of inhuman lightness and spirituality, of beings who had little contact with the earth, but who lived in a world of air and pure spirit.

E.5050-1968