Fine large half-length engraving of this important choreographer and dancing master by François Chereau (1680-1729) after Robert Tournières (1667-1752)
Paris: 1700-1720.
Pécour is depicted seated at a table with an open book of dances in Feuillet notation. 419 x 294 mm. to platemark plus wide margine
Margins browned, small remnants of mounting tape to verso. In very good condition overall.
Credited with 120 original choreographies, most for the theatre but many for social dancing, "[Pécour] was one of the finest dancers (and choreographer's) working under the celebrated royal choreographer Pierre Beauchamp. He is said in one source to have made his début as a dancer in a repeat performance of Lully’s Cadmus et Hermione in 1674. When, on Lully's death in 1687, Beauchamp left the Opéra, Pécour was appointed in his place. He gave up dancing in about 1703 but he held the post of ballet-master and choreographer at the Opéra until his death. His tutelage produced such outstanding dancers as La Fontaine, Subligny, Guiot, Prevost and Menese among the women and Blondy, Ballon, Dumoulin and Marcel among the men. He is credited with changing the ‘S’ figure of the Minuet to a ‘Z’, an innovation that helped keep the dancers in a proper relationship to each other and to the figure." Meredith Ellis Little in Grove Music Online.
Pecour's choreographies were published in a number of collections such as those found in his "Recueil de Dances ... 1704 " between 1700 and 1725. Each of the publications is rare and of considerable importance to the history of the dance and its early graphic notation.
Item #38954
Price: $650.00 other currencies