Dance and Costumes. Elna Matamoros

were aware of the challenge before their very eyes. As an anecdote –or an indication– the famous Carlo Blasis changed the illustrations in the two successive versions of his excellent treatise on dance: in the first book –his Traité élémentaire, théorique et pratique… of 1820– there were only seven female figures for fifty-seven male ones, which also showed, in all the plates except for one, the bare torso and arms.¹⁰ In its second version of the book –notably enlarged and written in English: The Code of Terpsichore, of 1828– the proportion of male and female explanatory figures was not only balanced, but there were even more women than men –fifty-one vs. forty-five, respectively–, and almost all of them, were wearing sophisticated dance costumes.¹¹

      4.2 - Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide (souvenir d’Adieu No. 1). Lithograph from a drawing by Alfred Edward Chalon, 1845.