Silver dance shoe. Saint Petersburg, 1855. Under the slipper is engraved a long dedication on four lines in Italian: "Ad Antonietta Ferrero che coll'arte di Tersicore delizio il pubblico / del teatro Dal-Verme, nel ballo Brahma e Pietro Micca / Carnevalo 1901-1902... L'impresa / Oreste Poli Co" (To Antonietta Ferrero, who with the art of Terpsichore delights the public / of the Dal-Verme theater in the dance Brahma and Pietro Micca / Carnival 1901-1902.. the company / Orestes Poli Co). Hallmarks: 84, St. Petersburg 1855, assayer "А-М" (Alexander Nikolaevich Mitin) and silversmith "ПС" (firm of Pavel Fedorovich Sazikov under the direction of his son Ignaty, St. Petersburg branch). Length: 21.5 cm; weight: 500 g Antonietta Ferrero is an Italian ballerina from Milan who made a brief appearance in St. Petersburg in 1904; she appears sparingly in Petipa's memoirs. The two ballets mentioned are Brahma by Hippolyte Monplaisir and Pietro Micca by Luigi Manzotti. The company Oreste Poli managed the Dal Verme theater in Milan in the first quarter of the 20th century. This luxurious slipper was undoubtedly made on commission for a ballet dancer, "probably Italian", in 1855 and was probably acquired by Oreste Poli who gave it to A. Ferrero. One hypothesis is that it could be a gift from Prince Leon Radziwill to the famous ballerina Carlotta Grisi, his mistress from 1853 to 1855/1856. Carlotta Grisi died on May 20, 1899 in Switzerland where she had retired. She was (or would have been) also the mistress of Théophile Gautier. [Russian art]