Silver filigree bouquet holder owned by ballerina Marie Taglioni (1804-1884)

Conical bouquet holder in silver filigree, the upper edge decorated with filigree flowers linked by fine silver chain and pendant tassells. The base is held by a small silver screw cap which when removed activates a spring to open out the lower third of the cone into three 'legs'. Attached is a fine silver chain on which are fixed the screw cap, a ring and pin to secure the flowers in place.

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

According to Cyril Beaumont, the bouquet holder was owned by the great Romantic ballerina Marie Taglioni and was a gift from Mrs Boggs Rolfe, her closest friend in London in the 1870s, after a visit to her country house.
The bouquet holder is listed among objects relating to Taglioni in the London Archives of the Dance in "The London Archives of the Dance and some of its Treasures" by Cyril Beaumont, Ballet Annual, first issue, Adam & Charles Black, London, 1947, p110 (illustrated p 111).
The bouquet holder is part of a unique collection of memorabilia and personal effects which evoke Marie Taglioni in the last decades of her life.
A collection of Taglioni memorabilia was amassed by Margaret Rolfe, the granddaughter of Taglioni's closest friend in London, Mrs Boggs Rolfe; she attended Taglioni's dancing classes and received many gifts of Taglioni memorabilia, from Taglioni herself, from her grandmother and from Taglioni's niece, Marguerite Troubetzkoi, after Taglioni's death. She kept these, with a series of related notes, in various boxes and annotated envelopes (filed separately). These she passed to Cyril Beaumont, probably for the London Archives of the Dance (a number of the objects were referred to in "The London Archives of the Dance and some of its Treasures" by Cyril Beaumont, Ballet Annual, first issue, Adam & Charles Black, London, 1947, p110); the Archives never achieved an independent home and part of the collection, including the Taglioni memorabilia, was stored with Cyril Beaumont, where it became inextricably mixed with his own collection and came to the Museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest.

S.11-1987