On the wall of the Mertzes Monte Carlo hotel room is a well known Nicholas Lancret framed print called La Camargo Dancing. Also seen on the chest of drawers beside the door is a figurine we saw in the Mertzes Connecticut home in another I Love Lucy episode. A figurine of a colonial lady, Florence Ceramics “Charmaine”.
The woman dancing in the painting is Marie Anne de Cupis de Camargo a famous French/Belgian ballet dancer known as La Camargo. She was first woman to execute the entrechat quatre, the first dancer to wear slippers instead of heeled shoes, and also first to wear the shorter calf-length ballet skirt and the now standard ballet tights.
Reference:
- http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.96.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Lancret
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Anne_de_Cupis_de_Camargo