Figurine

Date:

19th century (made)
Artist/Maker:

unknown (production)
Materials and Techniques:

Porcelain and gold enamel
Credit Line:

Cyril W Beaumont Bequest

Representations of Greek dance in 18th and 19th century painting, sculpture, painted vases and reliefs were inspired by archaeological sources. Classical images were considered noble and had the added appeal of close-clinging draperies revealing the female figure. This porcelain figurine is one of a pair which were probably designed to stand together on a mantelpiece decoration, on either side of an imposing classically-inspired clock.

Place of origin:

France (made)
Date:

1837 (made)
Artist/Maker:

Barre, Jean Auguste, born 1811 - died 1896 (maker)
Materials and Techniques:

Cast bronze

This figurine of the Romantic ballerina Fanny Elssler (1810-1844) shows her with castanets, dancing the Cachucha, the Spanish dance she made famous in 1836 as Florinda in Jean Coralli’s ballet Le Diable Boiteux. Its sculptor Jean Auguste Barre (1811-1896) was fascinated by capturing Romantic ballerinas in sculpture, from the weightlessness of Taglioni to the earthy stability of Elssler. He sculpted figurines of other dancers at the height of their careers, including Emma Livry in Le Papillon and Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide. His sculptures were so successful that prints of them were issued as souvenirs, and some were adapted for ornamentation on candlesticks and clocks.

Place of origin:

France (possibly, made)
Date:

ca.1840 (made)
Artist/Maker:

Barre, Jean Auguste, born 1811 - died 1896 (possibly, sculptor)
Materials and Techniques:

Biscuit

This figurine shows Fanny Elssler (1810-1844) dancing the Cachucha which she danced as Florinda in Jean Coralli’s ballet Le Diable Boîteux in 1836 at the Paris Opera and in London later the same year. It became the role most closely associated with Elssler and an iconic image of the Romantic Ballet.

Sculpture

Place of origin:

France (Made)
Date:

ca.1896 (Made)
Artist/Maker:

Rivière, Louis-Auguste-Théodore, born 1857 - died 1912 (Maker)
Materials and Techniques:

Marble, carved

The American dancer Loïe Fuller (1870-1928) in her diaphanous white costume is the subject of this marble by the French sculptor Théodore Rivière (1857-1912). Rivière took advantage of the relatively new art of photography to make it, using reference photographs which he took of her dancing in a park in Paris in 1896.

Place of origin:

France (made)
Date:

1904 (made)
1898 (designed)
Artist/Maker:

Léonard, Agathon, born 1841 - died 1923 (modeller)
Sèvres porcelain factory (maker)
Materials and Techniques:

Biscuit porcelain

This figure conveys, in ceramic form, the movement and energy of dance and typifies the spirit of Art Nouveau style. It originally formed part of a group of 15, entitled ‘Jeu de l’Echarpe’ (‘Scarf Dance’), and was inspired by the sensational dance performed by the American Loïe Fuller, a regular fixture at the Folies Bergère, Paris. The form of the free-flowing, silk-clad dancer was employed as early as 1893 in an iconic lithograph by the French artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and the elegant theatricality of this Sèvres figure group further established the motif in turn-of-the-century Parisian art.
The group was designed by Agathon Léonard in 1898 and displayed at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, where Sèvres won a prize.

Object:

Oil painting
Place of origin:

Great Britain, UK (possibly, painted)
Date:

1842 (painted)
Artist/Maker:

Uwins, Thomas, born 1782 - died 1857 (artist)

The tarantella is a folk dance, characterised by light, quick hops and turns. Uwins lived in Italy from 1824 to 1831 and specialised in peasant scenes

1600-1625; England; Anonymous gift; Silk, silver and silver gilt metallic threads, and pearls on linen canvas

Object:

Oil painting
Place of origin:

England, Great Britain (painted)
Date:

1869 (painted)
Artist/Maker:

Armstrong, Thomas, born 1832 - died 1911 (painters (artists))