Orientalist images of dance in prints

What you are looking at

Two female figures in classical dress execute a dynamic leap or hop against a neutral ground. The figure on the left wears a pink pleated skirt with dark red hem, a deep orange-gold embroidered collar, and gold hoop bracelets; her dark hair is styled with a braided crown and she gestures upward with one arm while the other trails behind. The figure on the right, in white with gold star embroidery and a blue-bordered wrap or shawl, wears a white cap with blue striping and gold fringe; she extends one leg behind her in an elevated position. Both dancers' bodies are weightless and airborne, suggesting either a moment of apotheosis or a highly stylised representation of classical movement. The composition is a hand-coloured print with soft modeling, set against warm cream ground, executed in a late 19th-century chromolithographic style typical of theatrical souvenir prints or dance costume studies.

The dancing

Both figures are airborne or en relevé, with no indication of a partnered hold or frame; they move in parallel rather than in contact. The figure on the left has an upward-reaching arm gesture suggesting elevation or exultation, while her companion's extended rear leg suggests either an attitude or an attempt at flight. The weight distribution is unclear—both seem suspended rather than grounded—and the footwork is impossible to determine from this stylised rendering. This is classical-academic gesture language rather than vernacular partnered movement.

The dance depicted

The image depicts classical female dancers in styles associated with 19th-century European theatrical performance, most likely either Romantic ballet or classical court dance revival. The costumes—elaborate drapery, embroidered bodices, and decorated caps—suggest either a Hellenistic or orientalist fantasy, common to both ballet d'action and pantomimic theatre of the 1870s–1890s. The airborne quality and gesture vocabulary point toward ballet, though the absence of pointe shoes and the ornamental rather than athletic presentation suggest a lighter theatrical or balletic-pantomimic style rather than rigorous classical technique. The image appears to be costume documentation or a theatrical commemorative print rather than a record of actual performance.

How it was made

This is a hand-coloured lithograph or chromolithograph, evidenced by the soft chromatic gradations, the characteristic outlines, and the warm cream ground typical of 1880s–1910s theatrical prints. The technique allowed for mass production of costume documentation and souvenir imagery for audiences, theatre companies, and dance practitioners. The careful hand-colouring over a lithographic base suggests a moderately expensive object, circulated among educated theatre-goers rather than a cheap broadside. Prints of this type were essential to the documentation and celebrity-making of 19th-century dancers, as they could be produced rapidly and distributed widely.

About this work

This hand-coloured lithograph captures two female dancers in a moment of weightless, exultant movement, dressed in orientalist or classical-fantasy costume suggestive of mid-to-late 19th-century European theatrical dance. The image belongs to the tradition of theatrical costume prints and dance documentation that flourished after mid-century, when chromolithography made it possible to produce vivid, detailed images of dancers and their dress for public consumption. As a record of how classical dance was imagined and performed in the Gilded Age, it documents both the movement vocabulary and the visual fantasy through which European culture understood dance from other traditions—or projected its own classical ideals onto imagined historical and exotic settings.

How to look at it

Attend to the weightlessness of both figures: the artist has chosen to freeze a moment of maximum elevation, not a grounded position, which elevates the dancers into a realm of fantasy or aspiration rather than documentation. Note the careful ornamentation of the costumes—the embroidery, the jewellery, the headwear—which carry as much visual interest as the movement itself; this was conventional in theatrical prints of the period, where costume was as much the subject as gesture. The parallel arrangement of the two figures, both airborne, suggests choreography built on visual symmetry and elevation rather than dramatic contact or narrative development.

The period

This print dates to the era of Romantic ballet's dominance in European theatre (roughly 1830–1890), when classical Greek and oriental themes were stock subjects for spectacular ballets. By the 1870s–1900s, however, classical ballet was consolidating its technique and aesthetic under the Cecchetti method and Russian Imperial models, while orientalist pantomime and lighter classical styles remained popular in commercial and demi-monde theatre. The theatrical print was at the peak of its influence in this period; photography existed but had not yet displaced hand-coloured lithography as the primary mode of dance documentation and celebrity imagery. The image likely dates to the 1880s–1910s, when such prints were most prolifically produced.

Where it lives

Held in the New York Public Library's collection of prints depicting dance, catalogued under the broader rubric of orientalist imagery of dance. The collection designation suggests this is one of many similar prints acquired to document the visual history of staged dance and theatrical costume.

Dance in this work

Questions about this work