{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O105519"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O105519/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AE5458/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AE5458/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AE5458","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AG8826","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O105519/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O105519","accessionNumber":"E.5000-1968","objectType":"Print","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Most 19th century dance prints show movement stilled.  This superb lithograph gives some idea of Fanny Elssler's energy and speed, showing her in mid-jump, her dress and necklace flying up around her. It is a spirited impression of a dancer who enthralled audiences of the 1830s and 1840s with her passionate, firey performances, a complete contrast to the chaste coolness of her great rival, Marie Taglioni.  As the great critic, Gautier, remarked, Taglioni was a dancer for women, but Elssler was a dancer for men.  \r\nElssler wears what we now recognize as ballet shoes.  These developed from the heelless satin slippers, held by crossed ribbons, which were the height of fashion in the early 19th century.  Darned to give extra support, and then stiffened by various techniques and with a solid base across the toes, they developed into the modern pointe shoe.","physicalDescription":"The dancer is depicted in mid-jump, her legs together with feet pointed, her hands on her hips and her head slightly inclined and looking at the viewer.  On her head is a coronet of multicoloured flowers with a veil attached at the back.  She wears a white dress with off-the-shoulder bodice and wide cap sleeves, the bodice with a corsage of flowers on the left breast.  Around her waist is a 'gold' belt.  Her four-tiered diaphanous white skirt, veil and necklace are 'flying' out from her body to suggest motion.  On her feet are white ballet slippers tied with crossed ribbons.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Francis, John Deffett","id":"A5832"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""},{"name":{"text":"Gauci, M.","id":"A4963"},"association":{"text":"lithographer","id":"AAT25175"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"Lithographic ink","id":"AAT187750"},{"text":"Watercolour","id":"x33202"},{"text":"Paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[{"text":"Lithography","id":"AAT53271"},{"text":"Hand colouring","id":"AAT133555"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Lithograph coloured by hand","categories":[{"text":"Prints","id":"THES48903"},{"text":"Entertainment & Leisure","id":"THES48959"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&P","id":"THES48602"},"images":["2006AE5458","2006AG8826"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"007","id":"THES356643"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Print","id":""}],[{"text":"Lithograph coloured by hand","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Great Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"published","id":"x30682"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1838","earliest":"1838-01-01","latest":"1838-12-31"},"association":{"text":"published","id":"x30682"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Dame Marie Rambert","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"507","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"print","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"322","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"print","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"The print shows Fanny Elssler in La Volière, a ballet-pantomime chorographed by her sister, Therese Elssler, performed at the Paris Opera in 1838.  \r\nThe 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.  \r\nRambert 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.","historicalContext":"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. \r\nBefore 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.","briefDescription":"Fanny Elssler in La Volière.  Lithograph coloured by hand by M Gauci after a drawing by J Deffett Francis, 1838.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"Strong, Roy, Ivor Guest, Richard Buckle, Sarah C. Woodcock and Philip Dyer, Spotlight: four centuries of ballet costume, a tribute to the Royal Ballet, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1981.","id":"AUTH349939"},"details":"","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["E.5000-1968"],"accessionNumberNum":"5000","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":1968,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-15","recordCreationDate":"2004-09-21","availableToBook":true}}