{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O105534"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O105534/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AE5404/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AE5404/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AE5404","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O105534/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O105534","accessionNumber":"E.5005-1968","objectType":"Print","titles":[{"title":"Harry Endersohn, / In his burlesque Imitations of Popular Danceuses.","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"By 1850, the image of the ballerina was fixed in the public mind - with her sleeked down hair, low-cut pointed bodice and bell-shaped skirt.  She was also ripe for parody.  \r\nThe clown Harry Endersohn was one of several clowns who played on this image and burlesqued popular dancers of the day.  In the 19th century, clowns associated with pantomime rather than with the circus.  They wore a distinctive make-up based on a white face painted with geometric shapes, and a costume made up of a loose, frilled top and breeches or trunks, also decorated with geometric shapes. Endersohn only needed to swop trunks for the recognizable bell-shaped skirt for audiences to instantly get the point.","physicalDescription":"In a room with Moorish overtones, a clown is dancing.  He is jumping with his right leg stretched down and his left raised behind; his arms are held outwards, his left arm across his body and his right up from the shoulder and his head is turned to the right, looking down.  His wig consists of a tuft on the top of the head and a tuft to either side.  On his forehead and chin are small dots, his eyebrows are drawn as triangles and below each eye is a horizontal 'y' shape; his lips are exaggerated.  He wears a dress parodying 19th century ballerinas, the bodice with a pointed front and small frill around the neck; around the long fitted sleeves are lozenge and line decorations and over the upper arm are exaggerated puffed sleeves decorated with formal lozenge and quatrefoil patterns; the formal decoration in the centre of the bodice is mostly obscured by the large puffed sleeve of his left arm.  The lower edge of the bodice is trimmed with two frills decorated with lozenges and spots.  Below, instead of the traditional trunks, he wears a stiff, bell-shaped skirt, decorated with trails of roses, beneath which is an underskirt the hem decorated with a trail of leaves.  Up each foot and leg is a vertical geometric pattern.  In the background is Pantaloon.  Through an archway can be seen a city river.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"Lithographic ink","id":"AAT187750"},{"text":"Paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[{"text":"Lithography","id":"AAT53271"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Lithograph","categories":[{"text":"Prints","id":"THES48903"},{"text":"Entertainment & Leisure","id":"THES48959"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&P","id":"THES48602"},"images":["2006AE5404"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"009","id":"THES356645"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Print","id":""}],[{"text":"Lithograph","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Great Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"mid 19th century","earliest":"1825-01-01","latest":"1875-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Dame Marie Rambert","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"405","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"at centre","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"327","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"at centre","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Print irregularly cut down","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Harry Endersohn was a pantomime clown in the mid 19th century.  By this time, the image of the ballerina had crystallised and was ripe for parody; Endersohn was one of several clowns who burlesqued famous dancers of the day.  \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":"","briefDescription":"Harry Endersohn in his burlesque imitations of popular danseuses.  Lithograph, mid 19th century.","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":["Pantomime clown"],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["E.5005-1968"],"accessionNumberNum":"5005","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":1968,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-15","recordCreationDate":"2004-09-22","availableToBook":true}}