Visiting card case owned by ballerina Marie Taglioni (1804-1884). Gold tooled leather with porcelain painted plaque to the front, lined with matching green silk

Card case of green leather with tuck-in flap to top and inset enamelled porcelain panel with flowers in decorative surround; The outside and inner flap are tooled with a gold scroll and stylized foliage design. The case is lined with matching dark green silk and has a pleated matching gusset, and is stamped on the flap: "CHAMBERLAIN WORCESTER AND / 156, NEW BOND STREET LONDON"

Bequeathed by Cyril W Beaumont

The visiting card case is part of a unique collection of memorabilia and personal effects which evoke the great Romantic ballerina Marie Taglioni in her private life.
The card case contains visiting cards for herself.
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, both from Taglioni herself and from her grandmother. 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.

This card case belonged to Marie Taglioni (1804-1884), a celebrated Italian dancer of the romantic ballet, who performed at Her Majesty's Theatre in London and Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris in the late 1830s. She became famous for dancing en pointe, not as an acrobatic stunt, but as an aesthetic decision in choreography.
The case was designed and produced by the manufacturer Chamberlain Worcester in the early 1800s. Although the case is primarily made of leather embossed with gold powder in a fashionable foliage design, the central panel is made with enamelled porcelain, decorated with flowers. This glamorous case held Taglioni's business cards (S.853:2&3-2001).

S.853:1 to 3-2001