page_title: Marie Taglioni
section_title: Pas de Quatre
hierarchical_section_title: Marie Taglioni / Pas de Quatre
caption_attribution_description: English: Pas-de-Quatre (1845): Carlotta Grisi, Marie Taglioni, Lucile Grahn and Fanny Cerrito
context_page_description: Marie Taglioni, Comtesse de Voisins was an Italian ballet dancer of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance. She was one of the most celebrated ballerinas of the romantic ballet, which was cultivated primarily at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, and at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique of the Paris Opera Ballet. She is credited with being the first ballerina to truly dance en pointe.
context_section_description: In 1837 Taglioni left the Ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre to take up a three-year contract in Saint Petersburg with the Imperial Ballet (known today as the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet). It was in Russia after her last performance in the country (1842) and at the height of the "cult of the ballerina", that a pair of her pointe shoes were sold for two hundred rubles, reportedly to be cooked, served with a sauce and eaten by a group of balletomanes.
  In July 1845, she danced with Lucile Grahn, Carlotta Grisi, and Fanny Cerrito in Jules Perrot's Pas de Quatre, a ballet representing Taglioni's ethereal qualities that was based on Alfred Edward Chalon’s lithographic prints. Pas de Quatre was originally choreographed to be presented to Queen Victoria, who attended the third performance.
caption: Taglioni (center) in Pas de Quatre, 1845
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