
La Belle Assemblée, a brutal dance cartoon during Regency
And what if we forget a moment the dance manuals, to study a dance caricature?
The traditional sources for ballroom dance history give us an altered version of reality. Dance books and instructions depict an ideal world, where Dance is the ultimate Art, from which all others derive. Fro example Wilson, in 1808, wrote:
“In short, Dancing is the most enchanting of all human amusements, it is the parent of joy, and the soul and support of cheerfulness (…)”
Thomas Wilson, An Analysis of Country Dancing (…), W. Calvert, Londres, 1808.
But this is only one side of the coin. Alongside this literature, which is more than favourable to dance, there are also many anti-dance works. The Library of Congress offers an excellent overview.
And then there is caricature: what better way than humour to intelligently criticise society’s pastimes?
These humorous, exaggerated drawings give us a different view of ballroom dancing. A more realistic view, perhaps, than that of the dance masters. Where the dance manual would insist on decorum and elegant choreography, the caricature would highlight the slightest flaw, the slightest criticism.
Based on real life and experience, caricature wonderfully completes the theoretical speech from the dance manuals.
What view does the cartoonist George Cruikshank take of society dancing in the early 19th century? And first of all… George who?
Who is George Cruikshank ?
George Cruikshank is one of the greatest English cartoonist. He is even the main one during the end of Georgian era.

From a very yoing age, the cartoonist became famous, and even feared by his “targets”, who were ready to pay to avoid his scathing stroke of a pen.
So in 1820, when he was just 28, Cruikshank received the considerable sum of one hundred pounds in return for a promise not to represent King George IV in ‘an immoral situation’. That was the annual salary of an office clerk. A nice sum for not working!
In 1817, George Cruikshank produced several series of caricatures on the subject of dancing. I had intended to present several of them in this article, but the first work has already made me exceed two thousand words. I therefore prefer to defer analysis of the other engravings to other articles. You can then read about the series the elegance of the quadrille and a dance lesson.
Today’s illustration offers a valuable point of view on the variety of the dance performed during balls and on stage in the beginning of 19th century.
La Belle Assemblée, or Sketches of characteristic dancing
The artwork that interest us is a big etching (around 60 x 20 cm), published on August 31 1817. Its title: La Belle Assemblée, or Sketches of characteristic dancing.

Click on the picture to enlarge.
La Belle Assemblée was a famous women’s magazine from the beginning of the 19th century. This publication was aimed at a fashionable, well-to-do female audience. The title emphasises the harmony of the group of dancers. In the end, it is rather ironic, as we shall see later.
In this caricature, full of detail, Cruikshank offers us a panorama of national dance in Europe. The work is divided into three areas: the dancers, the picture gallery and the balcony. Let’s start with the balcony, shall we?
At the balcony
Terpsichore, muse of Dancing, presides in the middle of the balcony. She is easy to identify, as she holds a banner with her name. The tone is set: the cartoon will speak about dance.

The other banners says: « On the light fantastic toe ».
That verse comes from John Milton’s L’allegro, published in 1645. The full line being: « Come, and trip it as you go / On the light fantastic toe. ». Many authors quoted that section, and gradually shortened it as « Trip the light fantastic ».
That locution is still used nowadays to refer to a skilled dance. So we will not only speak about dancing, we will speak about a beautiful, mastered, well-made dance.
Under the banner, many musicians (violins, harp, bass…) let their notes flow onto the dancers.
Most assembly rooms and ballroom have a similar balcony to host the musicians. That one stands out by its fresco of dancers, amongst them Harlequin. Dance is everywhere in that drawing!
The dancers
On the lower floor, the dancers perform various dances, offering a real dancing travel around Europe. Will you recognise them all?
On the extreme left side, we find the dancing master, holding a perfect second position. He holds his kit, the musical instrument that for sure identify the dancing masters. The kit is a small violin that allows to play, dance and teach dance at the same time. Moreover, the small soundbox offer a smaller range: neighbours will not get disturbed during the lessons.
See how the dancing master looks annoyed!
Country Dance
The first group of dancers represent the Country Dance. Four dancers are performing a right hand across (moulinet), while the couple in the bottom is at rest.

Detail: dancing master and country dance
Why does Cruishank draws six dancers if only four are moving?
In the beginning of the 19th century, the prevailing form of Country Dance in the balls is the longways triple minor set. It is a country dance in column where the base unit it a three-couple group or minor set. That’s why six dancers are depicted.
In that form of dancing, the thrid couple usually does nothing interesting – or even nothing at all! So, the depiction is especially coherent with the habits of the period.
Scottish reel
Reading further to the right, three dancers can be identified at the first sight. Those are Scottish reel dancers, as the kilt and the tartan sashes suggest.

The reel is a dance for three or four dancers. It consists of two parts: stepping, where you compete for inventiveness and agility in your footwork, and hey, where you run along a figure-8 trajectory with your partners.
The reel is a traditional scottish dance, especially popular in England at the turn of 18th and 19th centuries. Jane Austen mentions it in Pride and Prejudice, when Mr Darcy asks Elizabeth Bennet if she’d like “to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel” (chapter X).
Irish Jig
The next three dancers are Irish. The green colour of the dancer’s dress is a big clue.

Detail: Irish jig
The couple is dancing a jig. That dance typical from Ireland and Scotland showcases complex steps.
Beware, that drawing is leaning against the Irish people. Cruikshank was a fervent patriot.
Attention, dessin orienté ! Cruikshank est un patriote convaincu. Here he takes up an anti-Irish sentiment that arose in the wake of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. He systematically portrayed the Irish as violent, half-wild drunks.
The drawing emphasises these two elements: the man is holding a bottle – probably whiskey, surely not water! The child is drinking a glass of the same stuff. He is brandishing a shillelagh, a typical Irish fighting stick.
La Minuet
In the center of the cartoon, an elegant couple dances the minuet, “the queen of dances, and the dance of queens” as Maupassant called it. That dance was born in the mid-17th century, and is still a classic dance to open a ball 150 years later, according to the dance manuals.

Cruikshank shows the refinement of the dance by giving it plenty of room: the minuet alone takes up more space than the eight dancers of the quadrille! The ceremonial aspect of the dance is underlined by the sabre at the man’s side and the train of the lady’s dress. She is the only one of the 14 women represented to wear one.
As Catherine and Pascal Pécriaux noted: “The minuet dancer carries not a sabre, a purely military weapon (and incongruous in a salon) but a dress sword, a compulsory (civilian) accessory of court dress. Nonetheless, it is surprising that he should keep it on for dancing, but it is no doubt the spirit of the caricature to depict a character who gives up nothing that distinguishes his social rank…“.
To emphasise evenmore the sophisticated nature of the minuet, Cruikshank creates a strong contrast with the coarse dancers placed on both side of the couple. On the left side, the Irish Jig which I have already mentioned. On the right side, the Waltz, the risqué dance in the beginning of 19th century.
German Waltz – Valse allemande
Cruikshank doesn’t pay much attention to the waltzers. We could easily lose sight of that couple, squeezed between the minuet and the quadrille. The dancers are plain ugly and overweight. The lady wears a strict, tight bun, without the boucles that ornates the other hairdo of the assembly.

Other dark cartoons by Cruikshank show degenerate, obscene, mismatched waltz-dancers. Many of his contemporary share that prejudice against a nasty and pervert dance: waltz took over 30 years to be fully accepted in the balls, and was only truly accepted during the reign of Queen Victoria (1839-1901).
That tough arrival on the dancefloors can be explained by two factors. First, the proximity – the promiscuity?- between the dancers. The waltzers are close to each others, touching shoulders, back, hips… Such contacts upsets the dancing habits!
On the other hand, waltz is a turning dance. From at least the Renaissance, one think that the dizziness is extremely dangerous. Being dizzy could trigger many kinds of illness, particularly for the women.
French Quadrille
The newt group is dancing the quadrille, the fashonable French dance, that competed with the Country dance. Quadrille is born around 1800, and was based on the French contredanse, or cotillion.

Detail: French quadrille
The area devoted to the quadrille is undoubtedly the most complicated to analyse, because it’s the most crowded. It’s not easy to represent eight dancers in full action on a surface about 9 cm wide.
Nevertheless, I tried to identify the figure in progress and one truth hit me hard. Do you know what I mean?
The riders’ positions are reversed.
The men in the quadrille are to the right of their partner, contrary to the usual practice. At first I thought this was due to the engraving technique, since you have to engrave in negative to print in positive. But the country dancers are ‘right side up’.
Furthermore, Cruikshanks’ other drawings shows correctly the male dancers on the left side. So my only explanation is that of the artist’s absent-mindedness. All hypothesis are welcome.
The dance figure is quite easy to identify. The leader (man in light blue trousers and red jacket) is dancing with two ladies (plum-coloured and olive-green dress). So it it the Trenis that is depicted.
Spanish boliero
It’d be hard to tell the origin of these dancers, if it was not for their castanets. They’re Spanish and they dance the bolero.

Detail: Spanish Boliero
This dance in 3/4 time borrows elements from both the French country dance and the sevillana. It appeared at the end of the 18th century and enjoyed considerable success, giving rise to Spanish academic dance.
The dancers’ outfits – the topless female dancer, the man in a peculiar habit, the bicorn on the floor – deserve to be studied in greater depth.
As Catherine and Pascal Pécriaux noted: ‘The Spaniard wears an outfit that is not a uniform, but a suit that is austere in colour, old-fashioned in cut (reminiscent of the Spanish Golden Age doublet), with an equally old-fashioned hairstyle and moustache. It was the fashion of those nostalgic for the greatness of Spain, suspicious, even hostile, towards anything that denoted a foreign influence.’
After the Golden Age (16th-17th centuries), Spain went through a long, slow decline, with the inevitable loss of its colonies (Florida in 1763; part of St Domingue in 1795; Louisiana in 1800; independence for the Latin American colonies from 1810). Spain, very attached to its colonial past, missed out on the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
Understandably, the Spaniards are portrayed as old-fashioned and nostalgic. Cruikshank used these same clothes, reminiscent of those of Don Quixote, in an engraving from 1808. In it, he poked fun at Spain, which had become a vassal state of France under the reign of Joseph Bonaparte.
As for the Spaniard’s bare breasts, Yves Schairsée spotted a clue in the Manuel complet de la danse, by Carlo de Blasis (1830): ‘Almost all Spanish dances, like the bolero, (…) are imitated from the fandango or the chica: that’s why they have all the voluptuousness (I might even say indecency) that characterises their model’. The bolero would therefore be considered immoral.
Ballet italienne
Italian ballet is represented by a couple in arabesque position, standing on tiptoe. They are holding a garland of flowers, a typical attribute of professional dancers in the 18th century. Their Italian character is underlined by the presence of a small dog – an Italian greyhound.

Detail: Italian ballet
The dancer is topless… Is her skimpy outfit a reference to the proverbial immorality of professional dancers?
Having studied all the dancers portrayed in detail, one wonders how the artist views them. Some groups are clearly criticised, such as the Irish and the Germans. However, at first glance you don’t understand the profound message of the whole. And you may think I’ve oversold the ‘caricature’ aspect of the work!
The painting gallery – The hart of the caricature
To better appreciate the message of the cartoon, you have to look up. The walls of the ballroom are adorned with six paintings. This mise en abyme will shed light on Cruikshank’s opinion of Terpsichore’s disciples.
First painting serie: on the left of the balcony

Detail: painting gallery with dancing animals
The first canvas is titled Dancing dogs. Five dogs stand proudly on their back legs, obeying their master’s whip.
The next painting is called Dancing Bear. A tamer performs his number, with his leashed bear and a little monkey.
The third and last painting of that serie bears the title Dancing Horse. In an equestrian theater, a tamer and his horse are performing. A clown stands dehind them.
Those first three painting already set the tone. Cruikshank see the dancer on the floor as performing animals. They learned poses and tricks to cause a sensation, but they are still wild animals. The caricature is nasty for the human dancers.
Second series of painting: on the right side of the balcony
The second part of the painting gallery is event worse, see for yourself.
First, a Rope dancer stands on a tightrope. An impressive but dangerous circus act. Cruikshank goes further on his circus metaphor, and adds the idea of danger. Whil the danger is physical for the acrobat, for the dancers the danger is moral. That painting is sitting close to the waltzers, who do not think twice before putting their virtue and their reputation at risk.

Detail: Painting gallery – Rope dancer, St. Vitus’s dance, Dancing mad
In the penultimate vignette, a portly doctor examines a patient suffering from chorea (St Vitus’s dance). This disease affects the nervous system and causes involuntary, uncoordinated movements. The artist compares the dancers to patients who can no longer control their movements. Absolutely charming.
The apotheosis of caricature is reached in the last painting, entitled Dancing Mad. Two men contort their bodies in sadness and despair. The cause of these feelings is their friend, who is dancing… hanging from the end of a rope, as the expression goes. The dance movements are compared to involuntary gestures, deeply negative… even deadly. These people (the dancers) are crazy, just good for hanging.
If Cruikshank’s opinion was not clear at first glance, it leaves no doubt once you have examined this part of the cartoon. The artist was extremely critical of all the dance styles of his time.
Conclusions: a subtil caricature
Despite its violent criticisms, La Belle Assemblée is an invaluable record of dancing in Europe in the early 19th century. The different dances are carefully drawn, allowing us to appreciate the variations in style of each one

Detail: various style of dancing
Cruikshank presents several facets of national dance, with hints of nationalism (particularly in his depiction of the Irish jig) and reaction (the German waltz). Using a system of ‘mocking tableaux’, the artist compares the dancers to circus animals, who have learnt a few tricks of the trade, but are no less wild for it. Their passion for dance is like a disease, provoking exaggerated and reprehensible feelings.
Moira Goff suggested to me that this engraving might represent types of dance that could be seen on stage in London at the same time. It’s an idea that makes sense, especially considering the dances on the right of the panorama (Italian ballet, Spanish bolero). On the other hand, the hypothesis that Cruikshank is talking about ballroom dances is also sound. The proof lies in the presence of the dancing master and the configuration of the venue, which is more reminiscent of the Assembly Rooms than a theatre stage.
Cruikshank’s ingenuity lies in the subtle yet acerbic expression of his criticism. At first glance, all you see is a series of gentle dancers. The caricature comes later, and is not frontal. The artist would take up this principle of ‘mocking tableaux’ in other caricatures dedicated to dance, which will be the subject of another article.
The title, La Belle assemblée, now sounds like a mockery. Ah, the beautiful assembly!

