Dance Card
Dance cards or "Ballspenden" which literally translates as "ball-donates" have been a part of Viennese culture for nearly two hundred years. Today, especially in Vienna, Ballspenden has come to represent the party favor or dance card that a lady used to record who she would dance with at a ball.
In Vienna in the 1830's almost half the population of 400,000 attended almost 800 balls during Fasching before Lent. Those numbers of people attending balls through the years translated into the production of hundreds of thousands of dance cards for just one city alone, Vienna.
With most cities in the world holding dances and balls, the numbers of dance cards produced through the years must have been in the millions.
Yet today, dance cards in the marketplace are a rarity: they are fragile, often were not kept and many were lost during the destruction of wars.
By the mid-1860's, when Johann Strauss, Jr. had written "The Blue Danube Waltz", Vienna, the city of the waltz, was the center of social life for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Part of the social life was the formal "Ball" or "Fete" sponsored by the various organizations representing every aspect of daily life. Balls were sponsored by doctors, architects, mountain climbers, police agents, men's singing clubs, railroad switchmen, just to name a few.
Just about any group of citizens could sponsor a ball and they did! For many organizations, the annual Ball was the high point of the year.
Ballspenden have been around for quite a long time, certainly since the mid 18th century. Splendid examples made of precious metal and jewels survive in museums. These examples were created for the wealthiest class of the Empire.
The dance card, no matter when it was made, generally consisted of a decorative case which opened to reveal a "book" that listed the various dance titles and composers with a blank line which would be filled in with the name of the person with which the lady intended to dance. Listed in the card could be from 10 and up to 20 or more dance titles. Attached somewhere to the case was a pencil with which to write a name.
A decorative cord was attached to the case so that the entirety could be attached to the lady's ball gown.
Generally, the "case" that holds the card, especially with European dance cards, reflects the sponsor of the ball with some object depicted in miniature.
The sponsoring organization would have the committee meet with the Ballspenden manufacturer to decide on the design to be used for the dance card. In Vienna, most of the manufacturers were located in the inner city. American dance cards were usually printed by local printers from the city where the sponsoring organization was located.
Many dance cards (especially those from Vienna) were designed by important people of the era such as Viennese architect Joseph Maria Olbrick who designed Secession style buildings in Austria. His design for a dance card in our online Dance Card Museum is dated January 24, 1898 and was for the Architects Ball of Vienna.
The admission fee to Viennese Balls was higher for women than for men, to cover the cost of the ballspenden.
For some reason, probably social custom, the Hungarian and American dance cards list the sponsors not only by organization name but also by member's name.
The names of composers listed on dance cards could be: Schultze, Musard, Lumbye, etc. however, usually one third of the dances would be composed by Strauss. The King of the waltz created the music that made balls flourish not just in Vienna, but all over the world.
Without his wonderful composi- tions and his extraordinary follow- ing the ball would not have had the impact on the social life of the era.
The waltz was received with enthusiasm throughout the Empire. Budapest, being a smaller carbon copy of Vienna, followed suit with its residents sponsoring annual balls to dance the "kerango."
Information Guidelines about dance cards.
1. Size: generally dance cards are between 1" and 3" in size, so as not to get in the way of the lady.
2. Materials: either paper, metal (brass, nickel, white metal), wood, organic material such as shell, ivory, mother of pearl,etc., glass.
3. Dance cards served two purposes: To be used at the dance to list in order the dances of the evening and to be kept as a memento of the Ball.
To see many more examples of wonderful dance cards, including Gallery 3 : The American Dance Card Wing and Gallery 4: Dance Cards on 'Loan' from around the world, plus GALLERY 5:
MEMENTOS FROM THE BALL that includes items that were kept or given to remember the ball visit our Museum website at:
http://www.drawrm.com/dance.htm
Almost all of the Ballspenden in this On-line-Museum are marked with the name of the manufacturer and the address of the workshop.
Please be sure to visit the Dance Card Museum again. We will be exhibiting over 100 additional dance cards in the near future.
* You will see that quite a few dance cards in this collection have been purchased on Cape Cod. In reality those that were purchased on Cape Cod came from only one shop. In the early 1950's the dealers from that shop went to Vienna often and purchased hundreds of items for resale back in the U.S.
Among the items that they purchased were Dance Cards. We were fortunate enough to come upon their shop and acquired most of their collection within the last three years. Back then (1950's) in Vienna, Dance Cards would sell for about $1.00. Today the average price for Dance Cards as exhibited in this collection is about $150.00 with many selling for over $1,000.00. In Vienna, Dance Cards in shops appreciate in value about 20% per year. We have been tracking those values for about 10 years.
The Drawing Room of Newport Antiques Gallery is located at 152-154 Spring Street, Newport, Rhode Island 02840. We are open daily from 11 am to 5 pm and by