Marie Taglioni taking curtain call. Lithograph coloured by hand by R J Lane after A E Chalon, dated 1845. From "La Sylphide Souvenir d'Adieu de Marie Taglioni", published 8 September 1845

Full length female figure wearing Romantic ballet dress, with pearl necklace and bracelets and floral wreath, facing to left with left arm oustretched and body inclined, holding posies in the right hand. Lithograph coloured by hand by R J Lane after A E Chalon, dated 1845. Inscribed: "Souvenir d'Adieu de Marie Taglioni." and "1845"

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

The print was number 6 in the series "The Album d'Adieux: La Sylphide Souvenir d'Adieu de Marie Taglioni", drawings by A E Chalon, lithographed by various artists and published in London in September 1845 to mark the farewell performances that season of the legendary Romantic ballerina Marie Taglioni. This was Chalon's greatest tribute to Taglioni; it was not only that he perfectly captured her qualities on paper but that the dissemination of those drawings through lithographs - its very softness matching the subject to perfection - helped create the myth of the Romantic ballet and its greatest performer.
The print came to the Museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest.

Historical significance: Lithography was the perfect medium in which to capture the misty romanticism of ballet in the 1840s, its softness matching the subject matter of the ballets and the supernatural creatures so often protrayed by the dancers. Chalon was the supreme artist of the period; his sensitive drawings did much to capture the qualities of the Romantic ballet dancers and have conditioned all future assessments of the period.

Attribution note: Probably

S.469-2000