The Dance of Anitra
1909 bronze statuette by Edith Maryon
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The Dance of Anitra is a 1909 bronze statuette by the English sculptor Edith Maryon. The work depicts the Canadian dancer Maud Allan performing Anitra's Dance from Peer Gynt, a play by Henrik Ibsen that was set to music by Edvard Grieg. Maryon created the work at the height of Allan's fame, known as her "Conquest of London": eighteen months of shows at the Palace Theatre, during which Allan emerged as a fashion icon, sex symbol, and controversial figure.
| The Dance of Anitra | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Edith Maryon |
| Year | February 1909 |
| Medium | Bronze |
| Dimensions | 53 cm (21 in) tall; 19.5 cm × 16 cm (7.7 in × 6.3 in) wide (base) |
The statuette is made of bronze and stands 53 cm (21 in) tall. It captures Allan mid-dance, emphasising her grace and movement as well as her sensuality. The scene it depicts takes place in the fourth of the play's five acts, which follow Peer as he is outcast from his Norwegian home and spends decades travelling abroad. While posing as a prophet to a desert tribe in Morocco, he is enraptured by the dancing of Anitra, attempts to seduce her, and is swindled out of his gold. Grieg's music accompanying the dance was later combined into the first of two suites, each comprising four compositions, that became some of his best-known works. Allan adapted the first Grieg suite, and with it Anitra's Dance, into her repertoire in February 1909, the same month that Maryon made the sculpture.
The Dance of Anitra is representative of Maryon's oeuvre from the middle of her career, which combined classical technique with deeper spiritual or philosophical ideas, and belongs to a category of her works pairing emotional and spiritual aspects. It is one of two sculptures by Maryon depicting Allan, both made around the same time. It also presages Maryon's work on eurythmy figures a decade later, after she joined the anthroposophy movement and became a close collaborator of Rudolf Steiner. Like The Dance of Anitra, these translated the grace and lightness of dance into the sculptural form.
The work was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in the summer of 1909, and at the Walker Art Gallery in the autumn of 1910. Reviewers at the time praised the work for its charm and grace; one wrote that Maryon had "overcome the difficulty of pourtraying the poetry of motion".[1][2] It was auctioned in 2025, attributed to a private collection in Wiltshire. The auction house noted it as one of the few works by Maryon known to survive in private hands.
Background
Edith Maryon
Between 1899 and 1912, when she was approximately 27 to 40 years old and living in London, Edith Maryon exhibited numerous works, particularly at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Walker Art Gallery; with the former exhibition held during the summer and the latter in the autumn, many of her works were exhibited at both.[3] These works, according to her biographer Rex Raab, tended to fall into five categories: first, the world of external physical being; second, references to the elemental world; third, motifs reflecting the human soul; fourth, allegorical works representing spiritual forces and beings; and fifth, a combination of emotional and spiritual aspects.[4]
Maryon was interested in the esoteric at least as early as 1909, and in 1914 moved to Dornach to join the anthroposophical movement led by Rudolf Steiner.[5][6][7] Over the next decade, until her death in 1924, Maryon became a close collaborator of Steiner; among other contributions while there, she was heavily involved in creating both the monumental sculpture The Representative of Humanity, and the eurythmy figures depicting an anthroposophical form of dance.[8][9]
Peer Gynt
Anitra's Dance takes place in Act IV of Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play Peer Gynt, set to music by Edvard Grieg.[10] The five-act play chronicles the journey of its titular character from the Norwegian mountains to far-flung places including the North African desert and Panama, before returning.[11]
Play
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The first three acts of Peer Gynt trace his progress from liar and layabout to outcast.[12] After running away with Ingrid, an engaged heiress who prefers him, he spurns her entreaties the next morning, saying he was merely "hot for a girl".[13] The parish forms a mob to set out and kill Peer, who declares that he shall set out "To the sea" and "further still".[14]
Act IV opens years later, with Peer a handsome and wealthy middle-aged gentleman.[16] He is now along the south-west coast of Morocco, and regales four travel companions, taken aboard his steam yacht in Gibraltar, with his life's story: In his telling, he was betrothed to a woman "of royal blood", but objected to her father's request that he take a title in order to marry her.[17] He left, he says, then made his fortune trading slaves to the Carolinas, and heathen images to China.[18] Peer's companions set about to rob him and commandeer his yacht.[19] Gold and yacht gone, Peer heads into the desert, where he discovers a richly caparisoned horse, jewels, and sacred robes, that had been stolen from a Moorish emperor and then abandoned.[20]
Newly adorned in imperial regalia, Peer is taken as a prophet by a desert tribe.[21] Girls dance in his honour and sing his praises; Anitra is among them, and comes to Peer's tent afterwards.[22] In what then becomes Anitra's Dance,[23] Peer commands her and the others to dance for him: "Dance for me, women! The prophet wants to forget the past."[24] Peer is enamoured with Anitra, offering a monologue on her looks, and attempts to seduce her.[25] She, in turn, persuades him to gift his jewels to her.[25] When Peer attempts to ride away with her on his horse, she persuades him to dismount and lead the horse, then hand her his "heavy bag" of gold to save him the effort of carrying it—then gallops back to her oasis.[26] The act closes with Peer assessing his life and options, deciding to go forward as a historian, and heading to Egypt.[27]
Music
Though published in 1867, Peer Gynt was not performed until 1876; it was then put on in an abridged form, with musical passages substituted for certain scenes.[28] Ibsen originally conceived of replacing Act IV with "a tone-poem which would indicate the content and would be accompanied by a few living pictures or tableaux presenting the most appropriate situations in the Act which had been omitted, e.g. Peer Gynt and the Arab girls".[29] He was ultimately persuaded to simply make cuts to the dialogue, although some further productions contained additional cuts, including to Act IV.[30] Grieg's original score included around two dozen songs.[31][32] He wrote Anitra's Dance to be performed as Anitra and the other girls dance, "conceived as an accompaniment to Peer Gynt's monologue ... played behind the scene pianissimo".[31]
Grieg's music for Anitra's Dance included parts for violins, a viola, cellos, a bass, and a triangle.[23] Writing in a 1910 biography of Grieg, Henry Theophilus Finck wrote that "In Anitra's Dance there are wondrous bars ... which seem to contain the quintessence of all that is blissful and ecstatic in love — the 'voluptuous mystery' of the East. The music is European in its rhythms and exquisite melodies, yet by some strange magic of genius Grieg seems to give it the very atmosphere of the tent in the wilds of Morocco where the Arab girl enchants Peer Gynt with her beauty and her graceful movements."[33]
Grieg's music for Peer Gynt had a legacy outlasting even the play.[34] Grieg pieced together eight of the compositions into two four-piece suites, with Anitra's Dance included in the first.[35] These quickly became popular and some of Grieg's best-known pieces, alongside his Piano Concerto in A minor, and were performed by orchestras worldwide.[35][36]
Maud Allan
Maud Allan began to rise to fame as a dancer by 1906, with her Vienna debut of The Vision of Salome, a rendition of the Dance of the Seven Veils performed by Salome before the beheading of John the Baptist.[37][38] The performances were both successful and controversial—the latter helping to feed the former—in no small part due to the fact that Allan's costume only minimally covered her breasts.[39]
Allan's break came when she was invited to dance before King Edward VII in September 1907.[40] The performance facilitated an introduction to Alfred Butt, the managing director and chairman of London's Palace Theatre,[41] which in turn facilitated a two-week residency there.[42][43] Allan was an overnight success; two weeks became eighteen months.[44][43] At the height of her "Conquest of London", as it was known, Allan broke box-office records, made £250 (equivalent to £35,000 in 2024[a]) a week from the Palace, and commanded the same price for her many private recitals.[45] She was at ease with and embraced by society, became both a fashion icon and a sex symbol, and contributed to an outbreak of "Salomania".[46] Her private life, including rumoured affairs with the Second Duke of Westminster and the Prime Minister's wife Margot Asquith, also became the subject of much gossip, inspiring two romans à clef: Salome and the Head, by E. Nesbit, and the anonymous and pornographic Maudie.[47][43]
Another product of Allan's fame was the proliferation of flower-pot statuettes of her sold at the gift shops along Bond Street.[45][48] Many of these were made in porcelain by German manufacturers, such as Kister and Galluba & Hofmann.[49] They tended to depict her most striking poses of her most famous role, Salome; these often mirrored the poses seen on photographic postcards of Allan.[50][49]
In October 1908, Allan performed for her 250th time at the Palace and—possibly due to exhaustion—suffered a bad fall on stage.[51][52] She returned to the stage on 12 February 1909.[53][52][54] She used her return to introduce new dances to her set, including the first Peer Gynt suite and, with it, Anitra's Dance.[52][54] Newspapers at the time variously stated that "Anitra's dance [was] wonderfully captivating";[54] "'Anitra's Dance' was the most charming of the [Peer Gynt] sections";[55] "the grace and vivacity of Anitra's dance were charming, but they were not in harmony with the Eastern colour of the music";[56] and "Anitra's Dance is delicious, the very spirit of girlish joy".[57] Allan's run at the Palace finally ended in mid-November 1909.[58][59]
Description
One cast of The Dance of Anitra is known, although additional casts may also have been made.[60] The statuette is made of bronze.[61][62][60] It is 53 cm (21 in) tall and, at the base, measures 19.5 cm × 16 cm (7.7 in × 6.3 in).[60] "Dance of Anitra" and "Maud Allan" are both spelt in relief on the sides of the base.[60] The base is signed by Maryon, and inscribed "Feb 1909".[60]
The work depicts Allan performing Anitra's Dance from Peer Gynt.[63][60] Allan is captured mid-dance.[60] According to the auction house Dreweatts, "The depiction of Maud Allan in this bronze captures the dancer's charisma, mysticism, movement and sensual stage presence as she performs the seductive dance which emphasises the grace and beauty of Anitra".[60]
By the time it was auctioned in 2025, Dreweatts noted that the sculpture appeared untouched under natural light, but displayed a patina and some wear around the extremities, such as the fingers and shoulders, and the base.[64] The sculpture was slightly dirty, Dreweatts added, and could use a light cleaning.[64]
As photographed in The Studio and The International Studio in 1911
Front/right
Rear/left
Head
signature
Base
Themes
According to Raab, the sculpture represents a fifth-category work by Maryon, displaying a combination of emotional and spiritual aspects.[4] Another example is Maryon's 1911 work Priestess of Isis.[4] To Dreweatts, it represents Maryon's "distinctive sculptural style that combined classical technique with symbolic expression".[60]
The Dance of Anitra is one of two works by Maryon depicting Maud Allan.[65][66] The other, titled The Passing of Winter—Miss Maud Allan as Spring, was made around the same time and perhaps larger; it was pictured in Academy Architecture in 1909,[65][66] and exhibited at the Forty-first Autumn Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery from 23 September 1911 to 6 January 1912, priced at £200 (equivalent to £28,000 in 2024[a]).[67] According to Dreweatts, writing about The Dance of Anitra, "While there is little documentary evidence of their personal relationship, this intimate rendering indicates there was a close relationship or at the very least an understanding between the two women whilst simultaneously allowing an insight into the interplay of performance, presence and visual arts in early 20th century Britain."[60]
The sculpture also presages Maryon's later eurythmy figures created for the Anthroposophy movement.[68] These originated in a relief created by Maryon, perhaps in early 1919, that depicts Ilona Schubert performing a eurythmy solo to Goethe's poem Die Spröde.[69] The work is thematically similar to The Dance of Anitra, displaying what Raab terms the "grace and lightness" (German: Grazie und Leichtigkeit) of the dancer.[69] It also prompted Maryon to look for ways to represent eurythmy gestures in art; she undertook these efforts from 1919 until early 1922 in collaboration with Steiner, beginning with three-dimensional models and eventually settling on two-dimensional wooden designs.[70][71]
Provenance
Royal Academy of Arts
Maryon created The Dance of Anitra in February 1909,[60] the same month an that Allan returned to the stage after her fall and began performing Anitra's Dance. [53][52][54] She displayed the sculpture at the 141st Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts that year, held at Burlington House in London from 3 May to 2 August.[72][73][74] Maryon displayed no other works at this exhibition.[75] The Era called the work "graceful" and highlighted it along with ten other celebrity portraits in an article on 8 May, terming the exhibition "an Academy, broadly speaking, of landscapes and men's portraits"; other such works included a portrait of Charles Santley by John Henry Frederick Bacon, and a bust of William Terriss by Albert Toft.[76]
The Gentlewoman also highlighted The Dance of Anitra, along with eight other sculptures, in an article on female artists represented at the Academy.[77] The article described the work as "of high merit".[77] Other sculptures the review highlighted included a marble bust by Margaret Wrightson, Isis by Frances Darlington, and a statuette of Ernest Troubridge by his wife Una Vincenzo.[77]
Another column discussing the Royal Academy exhibition was published in the Acton Gazette and Middlesex County Times.[1][2] It discussed 22 works from the exhibition, including Maryon's, and wrote that in The Dance of Anitra she had "overcome the difficulty of pourtraying the poetry of motion".[1][2] The comment echoed a phrase commonly used in reference to Allan; a February 1909 article in The Graphic stated that "Everyone who cannot think of anything else to say talks about the poetry of motion in connection with Miss Allan; and there is some excuse for the hackneyed phrase."[15] Amongst the other works highlighted by the column were A Favourite Custom by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (now in Tate Britain), Ulysses and the Sirens by Herbert James Draper (now in Ferens Art Gallery), and The New Voice by Byam Shaw.
Other publications mentioning the work included The Jewelers' Circular, which wrote that "The most striking pieces" at the exhibition "are to be found in the sculpture room",[78] and Lloyd's Weekly News, which noted the sculpture in an article highlighting the works by women in the show.[79]
Walker Art Gallery
The following year, in 1910, Maryon displayed the statuette at the Fortieth Autumn Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool from 19 September 1910 to 7 January 1911.[62] It was priced at £12 12s (equivalent to £1,800 in 2024[a]), but did not sell.[62]
The Studio and its American counterpart The International Studio published a photograph of the statuette, with Henry Bloomfield Bare calling it a work "of charm and interest".[80][81] The Dance of Anitra was one of three works depicted in the piece; the others were The Langdale Pikes, Westmorland by Robert Gwelo Goodman and The Balloon by Mary Gow, both of which were purchased by the Walker.[82][83][84][85] Maryon also displayed four other works at the exhibition: Fairy Luck, Meditation, To the Witches' Revels, and Miss Ruth Franklin.[86]
Auction
On 11 September 2025, the statuette was sold by Dreweatts, as lot 500 in its two-day auction Fine Furniture: Sculpture, Carpets, Ceramics & Works of Art.[60] At the time, the work was attributed to a private collection in Wiltshire.[64] The auction house noted it as one of the few works by Maryon known to survive in private hands, stating that such works appeared to be "extremely rare".[60] It sold for £4,200, against an estimate of £2,000–3,000, in addition to a 27% buyer's premium.[87]
Notes
- United Kingdom Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the MeasuringWorth "consistent series" supplied in Thomas, Ryland; Williamson, Samuel H. (2026). "What Was the U.K. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 1 April 2026.
