Admired songs from the opera of Giselle, or the night dancers by Edward J. Loder

What you are looking at

A theatrical scene depicting supernatural beings in a moonlit setting. The composition centers on three female figures in elaborate Romantic-era dress—flowing white tulle skirts with fitted dark bodices—arranged in a semicircle. The leftmost figure gestures upward with one arm, her body twisted in an attitude of alarm or supplication. The central figure stands with arms extended, palm outward, in a posture of control or command. The rightmost figure, similarly posed with extended arm, anchors the composition. In the background, architectural elements suggest a church or graveyard setting—a pointed spire and what appears to be gravestones or monuments are visible in shadow. A gnarled tree with wind-swept branches leans over the scene from above. Male figures in period costume appear at left and right, observing. The engraving's tonal range emphasizes the eerie, nocturnal quality through strong contrasts of light and shadow, with the dancers' white garments glowing against darker surroundings. The overall mood is Gothic and dreamlike—this is the famous scene of the Willis, the ghostly maidens of the ballet *Giselle*.

The dancing

The three central figures are positioned in a line that curves across the picture plane, creating depth and visual rhythm. Their arms are raised and extended in attitudes rather than in balletic first or second positions—the gestures suggest otherworldly agency or supernatural command. The bodies are upright and elongated, with the weight appearing to be lifted through the torso rather than grounded. The costumes—tutus, fitted bodies, and the characteristic bell-shaped silhouette—place these figures as ballet dancers of the mid-19th century. The male observers are posed as spectators or participants in the dramatic action, standing outside the arc of the dancing figures.

The dance depicted

This depicts a scene from Adolphe Adam's *Giselle* (1841), one of the cornerstones of Romantic ballet. The scene shown is the second act, in which Giselle appears as a Willis—one of the ghostly maidens said to be the spirits of jilted brides, who dance men to death on moonlit nights. The engraving illustrates the supernatural aesthetic central to Romantic ballet: weightlessness, otherworldliness, and an erotically charged combination of beauty and danger. The raised arms and extended attitudes are consistent with Romantic choreography, which valued arabesques, attitudes, and port de bras that emphasized line and ethereal carriage. This is not classical court dance or folk gesture, but theatrical ballet of the mid-19th century in its most celebrated and influential form.

How it was made

This is a steel or copper engraving, recognizable from the fine parallel hatching that models form and shadow, the crisp line work, and the overall tonal subtlety. The inscription at the foot identifies it as sheet music cover art for a piano reduction of the operatic score by Edward J. Loder (a rival composer to Adam who also wrote on the *Giselle* theme). The engraving technique allowed for mass reproduction and wide circulation—this would have been sold as cover art for home piano performances, making it accessible to the broad middle-class audience for Romantic ballet. The quality of the engraving work is high, suggesting a professional commercial print produced in New York by Atwill (Broadway), a major music publisher of the period.

About this work

This engraving documents the second-act supernatural scene of *Giselle* as it was performed and imagined in mid-19th-century American theatrical and domestic contexts. The print is a cover for a piano score, indicating how deeply ballet penetrated not just the theater but the home music-making culture of the era. It preserves an iconic moment from one of Romantic ballet's most canonical works—the apotheosis of weightlessness and otherworldly feminine power that defined the genre. The composition emphasizes the visual and gestural language of Romantic ballet: the elongated silhouettes, the raised and extended arms, the interplay of human dancers and supernatural setting. For anyone studying the visual culture of Romantic ballet in America, this image is primary evidence of how the ballet was understood, circulated, and domesticated.

How to look at it

The viewer should note the moment of supernatural stasis the artist has chosen: the dancers are suspended in a moment of otherworldly gesture rather than captured mid-movement. Their arms reach upward and outward not in classical positions but in expressive attitudes that suggest agency and power. The setting—the gnarled tree, the church spire, the shadows—creates a Gothic theatrical space distinct from the ballroom or court settings of classical ballet. The observer should attend to how the engraver uses light and shadow to suggest the eerie, nocturnal quality of the scene: the dancers glow against darkness, their white tutus and skin rendered luminous through the contrast. This is not realism but theatrical convention made visible—the supernatural rendered through the visual language of Romanticism.

The artist

The engraving is not signed or attributed in the catalogue record. The work was published by Atwill, a New York music publisher specializing in theatrical and popular music. It was produced to accompany a piano score by Edward J. Loder, an English-born composer who worked extensively in America during the 1840s and 1850s. Loder was a rival to Adolphe Adam in attempting to capitalize on the success of *Giselle*; his own version was performed in America. The print represents the commercial music publishing industry's engagement with theatrical ballet.

The period

This engraving dates to the 1840s–1850s, the height of the Romantic ballet era. *Giselle* premiered in Paris in 1841 and was performed in America by the mid-1840s. The Romantic movement in ballet, visual art, and literature was at its peak, characterized by an obsession with the supernatural, the exotic, the ethereal female body, and the transcendence of material constraint through art and desire. Lithography and engraving were the dominant media for mass-producing and circulating theatrical imagery and operatic scores. Sheet music covers were a major form of visual culture, comparable in circulation and cultural penetration to theatrical playbills and popular prints. This engraving sits at the intersection of theater, commerce, and domestic leisure—it brought the spectacle of the stage into the parlor.

Where it lives

The print is held in the New York Public Library's collection of prints depicting dance. It is identified as a cover for a published piano score, making it part of the commercial music publishing industry's output. The printer and publisher, Atwill of Broadway, New York, places it squarely within the American theatrical and commercial music world of the mid-19th century.

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