Fanny Cerrito

What you are looking at

This is a portrait-format lithograph of a young woman identified as Fanny Cerrito, a celebrated dancer of the mid-19th century. She stands in a relaxed three-quarter pose against a soft, atmospheric background with vegetation suggested behind her. She wears a white off-shoulder ball gown with short puffed sleeves and decorative buttons or ornaments down the front of the bodice. Her hair is parted and arranged in the fashion of the 1840s, with waves framing her face. Her right arm rests lightly at her side while her left arm extends gracefully, hand open, in a pose that suggests both the languor of portraiture and the trained carriage of a professional dancer. The lithographic technique creates soft tonal gradations around the figure, emphasizing her presence against the pale ground.

The dancing

The single figure stands in a characteristic pose of the era—weight balanced, shoulders relaxed and turned slightly. The arm positions are restrained and elegant rather than dynamic: there is no indication of active movement or performance. Her posture shows the upright, elongated line cultivated in ballet training, and the ease of bearing expected in a portrait of a society dancer. The hand gesture of the extended left arm is gentle and open, the kind of placement a trained dancer would naturally hold.

The dance depicted

Fanny Cerrito was one of the principal ballerinas of the Romantic era, celebrated across Europe in the 1840s and 1850s. This is a portrait of the artist rather than a record of a specific performance or choreography. The image does not depict her dancing, but rather presents her as a celebrated public figure in the conventional format of a mid-century theatrical portrait. The soft, idealized rendering and fashionable dress position her as much as a society figure as a performing artist.

How it was made

This is a lithograph, a printing technique that allowed for soft tonal modulation and was the standard medium for theatrical and celebrity portraits in the mid-19th century. Lithography permitted wide circulation and made these images affordable for collectors and theatregoers. The stone surface allowed the artist to build atmosphere through careful gradation, creating the halo of shadow around the figure. The signature mark visible in the lower left indicates the lithographer's hand; the artist's name is not recorded in the catalogue, but the technique and quality suggest professional theatrical print production.

About this work

This is a mid-19th-century lithographic portrait of Fanny Cerrito, one of the great stars of Romantic ballet. While it does not depict dance itself, it is a document of how a celebrated dancer was presented to the public: as an idealized figure of grace and refinement, captured in a moment of repose rather than performance. The image belongs in a dance collection as a record of theatrical celebrity and the visual culture surrounding dance at its peak moment of international popularity.

How to look at it

Attend to the contrast between the formal portraiture convention (the standing pose, the neutral ground, the fashionable dress) and the subtle traces of the dancer's training visible in the carriage and the elongated line of the body. The artist has chosen not to depict movement or performance, but rather the dancer in a moment of stillness, which was itself a kind of performance—the presentation of the self as an object of beauty. The soft lithographic tone creates an almost dreamlike quality appropriate to Romantic aesthetics.

The artist

The artist is not recorded. The print was produced by a professional theatrical lithography firm, likely in Paris, London, or another major European theatrical center. Such portraits were standard output for commercial print publishers and were sold at theatres and through print sellers to audiences hungry for images of celebrated performers.

The period

This portrait dates to the height of the Romantic ballet era, when dancers like Cerrito, Marie Taglioni, and Carlotta Grisi were international celebrities and the ballet d'action had become the dominant theatrical form. The 1840s were a period of intense print culture around dance: lithographs of dancers in costume and in street dress circulated widely and were collected as objects of both artistic and theatrical interest. The Romantic period privileged the ethereal, the poetic, and the idealized—qualities this portrait emphasizes through its soft focus and languorous pose.

Where it lives

The work is part of the New York Public Library's collection of prints depicting dance. It is a lithograph of the type produced for commercial sale and theatrical distribution in the mid-19th century.

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