Ninette HN 2379.

Meet “Ninette” HN 2379. According to the Book Royal Doulton Figures by Desmond Eyles, Richard Dennis and Louise Irvine, this dancing figure was perhaps named after Ninette de Valois the Irish born ballet dancer and choreographer who, after training with the Russian Ballet, formed her own company which revitalised ballet in Britain. Born June 6 1898-died March 8 2001. She devoted her life to the creation of British national ballet in the 20th century. On July 13 1996, just before the Royal Ballet School's annual matinee at Covent Garden was about to begin, applause suddenly erupted from one side of the auditorium. "It must be Madam," said those of us who could not see her, and everyone spontaneously rose to applaud the fragile, white-haired figure who had been wheeled to her place at the side of the stalls circle. Madam it was. Dame Ninette de Valois, who has died aged 102, had made it, as she had made it almost every year, to see the student dancers who would carry forward the work she had started so many years ago - the tiny enterprise that was to grow into the whole edifice of the Royal Ballet and its school. Earlier that year, on February 20, she had made it to Covent Garden for the 50th anniversary of the reopening of the Royal Opera House in 1946 with her company's production of The Sleeping Beauty. And she had come on stage for a standing ovation, led by the Queen from the royal box.