Jules Perrot and Carlotta Grisi dancing the polka

What you are looking at

A man in a red velvet jacket with matching breeches pirouettes with a woman in a pale blue-green dress with a white underskirt, their hands clasped in the center of the composition. The man is caught mid-turn, his body angled sharply, one leg extended, the other supporting his weight as he executes a rotational step. The woman faces him with her body held upright, her skirt lifted and spread by the momentum of the dance, her head tilted back slightly. The background is a neutral beige wash with subtle shadow modeling beneath the figures' feet, placing them in an undefined interior space. The print has the quality of hand-colored theatrical ephemera, with careful attention to the textures of fabric—the deep red pile of the man's coat contrasts with the translucent layers of the woman's skirt.

The dancing

The pair is in a closed, face-to-face position with hands joined at waist height. The man's frame is dynamic and rotational, his torso twisted and one leg extended in a motion that suggests rapid spinning; the woman's frame remains relatively vertical and stationary, anchoring the turn while her skirt rises and billows from centrifugal force. Both dancers are on the ball of the foot or heel, consistent with the quick, bouncing action of social dance of the period. Their relative heights and the angle of the man's body suggest he is the lead and she is being turned.

The dance depicted

This is a polka, a central European couple dance that swept through European and American ballrooms in the mid-19th century. The title attribution to the celebrated dancer Jules Perrot and the prima ballerina Carlotta Grisi suggests this depicts a theatrical version of the polka, likely from a ballet or staged entertainment rather than a ballroom context. The image captures the essential character of the polka: a fast, rising action with a slight hop or bounce, most evident in the man's extended leg and lifted deportment. The polka was danced in closed position with a quarter-turn action repeated to progress around the floor, exactly what is shown here—the man's spiral and the woman's responsive upright carriage.

How it was made

This is a hand-colored lithograph or engraving, a reproduction technique that allowed rapid mass production of theatrical and dance ephemera in the 19th century. The printing process—visible in the even, finely graded tones of the background and the precision of the figure outlines—enabled affordable distribution to a broad audience of theater subscribers and dance enthusiasts. The hand-coloring, applied after printing, gave each print individuality and visual appeal while keeping production costs low. This combination of mechanical printing with hand finishing was the standard for theatrical portraits and dance documentation of the 1840s–1860s.

About this work

This is a mid-19th-century portrait print of two of the era's most celebrated dancers performing the polka, a fashionable couple dance that had recently arrived in European cities from central Europe. The polka was simultaneously a ballroom phenomenon and a stage attraction, and this print sits at that intersection—it documents a theatrical interpretation of a social dance by two figures known for both ballet and ballroom popularity. Perrot and Grisi were stars of the Romantic ballet, and their engagement with social dance forms reflects the permeable boundary between stage and ballroom in mid-Victorian entertainment. The print is a primary record of how the polka was performed at the highest level and how it was marketed to a mass audience.

How to look at it

Notice the moment the artist chose: not a static pose but a turn in progress. The man's extended leg and twisted torso capture the lift and spiral action essential to the polka's character. The woman's upright carriage and the way her skirt rises show how the dance generated visible motion in costume—this is not a ballroom pose but an action frozen mid-movement. Observe also how the two bodies relate: despite the dynamic asymmetry, they remain in contact and aligned, the basis of closed-position partner work. The print asks you to read the dance through the body's geometry and the fabric's response.

The artist

The artist is not recorded. However, the style and printing technique are consistent with the work of mid-19th-century theatrical lithographers active in London, Paris, and Vienna—centers where Perrot and Grisi performed and where demand for colored dance prints was highest. Prints of this type were usually rapid commercial productions, designed for sale in theater lobbies and print shops rather than for collection as fine art, which explains the loss of artist attribution.

The period

The polka emerged in Bohemia around 1830 and reached Paris and London by the 1840s, where it became the dominant social dance of the mid-century ballroom, rivaling the quadrille. Its arrival coincided with the height of Romantic ballet, when figures like Perrot (a dancer, choreographer, and mime) and Grisi (a prima ballerina assoluta) dominated European stages. The two were closely associated: Perrot choreographed many works in which Grisi starred, and they were partners in both professional and personal life. The 1840s-1850s were a moment when the ballroom and the stage were still culturally porous; elite dancers performed in both contexts, and social dances were routinely staged. By the 1860s, this crossover would diminish as ballet became increasingly specialized.

Where it lives

This print is part of the NYPL's collection of dance-related prints and ephemera. It survives as part of a large corpus of mid-19th-century colored lithographs documenting fashionable dances, ballroom life, and theatrical dance entertainment. Such prints were commercial products, widely distributed, and many have survived in institutional collections.

Dance in this work

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