Friday Video: Baryshnikov Dances as "Vestris"

Isabella reporting,

This week I've been mildly obsessed with the great 18th c. father and son dancers Gaeton and Auguste Vestris, writing about them here and here. (And yes, after going off on this true Nerdy History Girl tangent, I can pretty much guarantee that a fictionalized version of the family will be turning up soon in one of my books.) One of our Anonymous commenters wrote that it was a shame that we had no video of Auguste, so that we could enjoy his dancing today.

Obviously, there isn't any video from 1781. However, I did discover a performance by one of the modern era's greatest dancers, Mikhail Baryshnikov, dancing in a style inspired by Auguste Vestris. This video itself almost qualifies as historical: it dates from 1969 when Baryshnikov was only 21 - the same age as Vestris when he took London by storm in 1781.

I believe the video is from Russian television. It begins with a brief segment entirely in Russian, showing Baryshnikov working with the ballet's choreographer, Leonid Jakobson, to develop characterization. I don't begin to understand what is being said (and if anyone out there does, please let me know!) but it's still fascinating to watch. The Vestris ballet was first presented at the International Dance Competition in Moscow; Baryshnikov earned a gold medal for his performance. The entire ballet follows at approximately 2:25 if you want to skip ahead.

Auguste Vestris was an innovator in several ways. He was one of the first dancers to rely on his own facial expressions instead of a mask, and amazed audiences by how swiftly he could change from one character to the next. Baryshnikov does this as well, and it's astonishing. Vestris was also famous for the athleticism of his leaps and spins, another talent that Baryshnikov shares. Most of all, both dancers delighted their audiences with their performances. I hope you enjoy this, too.

Horseless Carriages of the 1820s

Mr. Gurney's New Steam Carriage (1827)

Loretta reports:

While researching something else altogether, I stumbled on this description of an "Improved Steam Carriage" in a magazine published on this date in 1829. 

Not being good with matters mechanical, I’m not at all clear on the two-vehicle approach or what makes the 1829 version an improvement over the 1827 model. I post both for you to compare and contrast, as well as links to the descriptions.  If like me you find the prose less than enlightening, you might simply enjoy looking at the pictures of early horseless carriages.

From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, & Instruction, Saturday, September 26, 1829.

~~~

Descriptions of Mr. Gurney's carriage have been so often before the public, that extended detail is unnecessary. Besides, all our liege subscribers will turn to the account in our No. 287.

The recent improvements have been perspicuously stated by Mr. Herapath, of Cranford, in a letter in the Times newspaper, and we cannot do better than adopt and abridge a portion of his communication.

Mr. Gurney's Improved Steam Carriage (1829)

"The present differs from the earlier carriage, in several improvements in the machinery, suggested by experiment; also in having no propellers; and in having only four wheels instead of six; the apparatus for guiding being applied immediately to the two fore-wheels, bearing a part of the weight, instead of two extra leading wheels bearing little or none. No person can conceive the absolute control this apparatus gives to the director of the carriage, unless he has had the same opportunities of observing it which I had in a ride with Mr. Gurney. Whilst the wheels obey the slightest motions of the hand, a trifling pressure of the foot keeps them inflexibly steady, however rough the ground... (Read the full description here.)

The Mystery of the Missing Blog Posts

A Study in Scarlet

Loretta & Isabella report:

Readers who get our blog via email will notice it’s started cutting off abruptly.  And the pictures have disappeared.  Not really, though.  If you click on the title, you’ll be magically transported to the blog online, where you’ll see the whole post plus pictures.  And where you can communicate via the Comments section with other Nerdy History persons.  And search for posts on a topic of your choice.  And see more pictures. And ask us questions we’ll probably answer eventually.


We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging.


Illustration: D. H. Friston, (1887) Sherlock Holmes's first appearance, courtesy Wikipedia.

When Politics Made a Performer a Fox, 1781

Isabella reporting,

In my last post, I shared an elegant portrait of the celebrated dancer Auguste Vestris (1760-1842). There are, however, a good many more images of both Auguste and his father, Gaëtan (1729-1808), from the time, and they're far less flattering.

There was much about the two dancers that made them the perfect targets for the infamous satiric caricaturists of late 18th c. London: they were extremely popular on the stage, they were handsome, athletic, and fashionable, they made a great deal of money, and, most of all, they were foreigners (Gaëtan was a Florentine with a German wife, while his illegitimate son Auguste had been born in Paris to a French mother). It didn't matter that father and son weren't particularly politically inclined, or that they traveled from one country to the next for work, much as performers do today. To the English caricaturists they were plundering FRENCH, and since England was perpetually at war with France during the 18th c., that was enough.

It's interesting that in several caricatures, it's not Gaëtan or Auguste who are the ridiculed the most, but the English audiences who supported them. Both of the drawings here are accompanied with long, scolding verses that liken the Vestris supporters to not-very-bright geese.

The print, above, shows Gaëtan giving dancing lessons to a goose. He's dressed like a stylish macaroni, complete with an exaggerated wig, and the extra-dark brows and large nostrils show he is Not English (though to be fair, Gaëtan's portrait by Thomas Gainsborough shows a certain haughtiness as well). Ten verses question how England has come to value Vestris and dancing over everything else (you can read them all here):

  Of all the fine Accomplishments, sure Dancing far the best is,
  But if a doubt with you remains, behold the Goose and Vestris....
  Poor Milton wrote the most Sublime, 'gainst Satan, Death, and Vice,
  But very few would quit a Dance to purchase Paradise....
  The Soldier risks Health, Life, and Limbs, his Fortune to advance,
  While Pique and Vestris Fortunes make by one Night's single dance....

The print, below, is even more direct: A Vestrician Dish, or, Caper Sauce for a Goose Pye. Auguste is shown dancing gracefully on the stage of the Opera-House in the Haymarket, but the artist has replaced his head with that of a wily fox, and given him a fox's tail as well. His English audience hasn't fared any better: they're all shown as a flock of too-trusting, admiring geese under his spell. Here's part of the caption; read the rest here.

  If a Fox should appear from a pilfering band,
  Who has rifl'd your Roots and have damag'd your Land,
  What Loons would allow such a Thing still to fleece,
  If they were not a mere Set of Cackling Geese.

  Shall he gull us, because he can caper and reel,
  And wreathe his fine Body, like any Thames Eel,
  Such a Thing was ne'er heard of in Rome or in Greece,
  As a Fox well supported and courted by Geese....

  I now have a Guess at the Reason, I vow;
  So the longer we live, still the wiser we grow;
  It is a French Fox, all Pomatum and Grease,
  That so prettily tickles our English Geese.

Top: Detail, Six guineas entrance and a guinea a lesson, print by Paul Sandby, c. 1782-84. The British Museum.
Below: Detail, A Vestrician dish, or a caper sauce for a goose-pye, published by F. Assen & J. Jones, c. 1781. The British Museum.

Changing Horses in the Early 19th Century

Mail Changing Horses at the Falcon Inn

Loretta reports:

In the Comments section of a recent Casual Friday blog, Anonymous asked:

"Could you clarify how horses were switched out at posting houses? I can't seem to find out what happened to the horses that an owner left at the first stop. Were these privately owned horses boarded until the owner returned and took possession? After reading your blog and the Jane Austen's World blog it really opened my eyes to what a huge operation owning a posting house could be. I believe I read that there could be something like 2000 horses boarded and made ready for the mail coaches. Thanks for any insight!"

As one who loves to write road books, I’ve had a good excuse to acquire works on early 19th C travel, as mentioned here.

It's helpful to remember that the hired horses traveled only between stages, back and forth, and the stages averaged about ten miles apart (short stages over challenging terrain, longer stages over easier ground, generally speaking).  Then the horses would go back to the place they came from. A Regency writer once used the U-Haul concept as an analogy.

So your fictional person’s horses probably wouldn’t have gone more than a dozen or so miles from home on the first stage.  (Books Like Paterson’s Roads show the coaching routes and the places where one changed horses.)  In short, the horses would be easy enough for a servant to retrieve, if the owner isn’t returning soon.

The Runaway Coach

According to Cecil Aldin's The Romance of the Road, "The more wealthy sent on relays of horses for the shorter journeys, or might hire post-horses where necessary." Gentlemen who constantly traveled the same route might have their own teams stabled along the way.  A good alternative is to hire horses from the outset.  In the case you describe, while it’s possible that a gentleman would use his fine carriage horses for the first stage of a long journey, it's equally possible he preferred to use hired animals.

I invite our horse and carriage experts to weigh in on this interesting topic!

Illustration credits
Above left: James Pollard, Mail Changing Horses at the Falcon Inn, Waltham Cross, courtesy Wikipedia.  Below right: Thomas Rowlandson, The Runaway Coach, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.