Fanny Cerrito as Ondine in 'Ondine, ou La Naïade', ballet choreographed by Jules Perrot. Oil on canvas by G A Turner, 1843

In a seascape with full moon, a full length female dancer wearing calf length ballet dress, facing left jumping off her right leg, left raised behind, her hands stretched out and looking down at her shadow on the sand. Signed and inscribed lower left hand corner: Cerito as Ondine, Shadow Dance G A Turner 1843.

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

The painting shows Fanny Cerrito in the celebrated pas de l'ombre from Jules Perrot's ballet Ondine, music by Pugni, which she performed at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, in 1843, the first new full-length ballet of that season. The story tells of the water nymph Ondine and her love for the peasant Matteo; she lures his intended bride Giannina into the sea and changes place with her, but she cannot exist as a human and Hydrola, Queen of the Waters, reverses the change. The pas de l'ombre was performed by Cerrito at the moment when Ondine, having changed places with Giannina, leaves the sea, and sees her shadow in the moonlight - at first she thinks it is her rival, but then sees it as a sign of her human form, and the subsequent dance expressed "all the caprice, vivacity, and joyousness of her naiad temperament."
The painting came to the Museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest.

S.101-1986