Exhibits in the Royal Ballet school's museum

A collection of pink satin pointe shoes. In 1842 one besotted fan ate the slippers of ballerina Marie Taglioni, cooked in sauce Photograph: Sarah Lee

Margot Fonteyn's scrapbook, recording her triumph as Princess Aurora, when Covent Garden reopened after the war in 1946 Photograph: Sarah Lee

Margot Fonteyn's Sleeping Beauty costume designed by Oliver Messel for the reopening of Covent Garden after the war Photograph: Sarah Lee

Ursula Moreton's journal, recording her lessons in mime in the 1920s from Francesca Zanfretta, whose dancing and teaching career spanned the late 19th to mid-20th centuries Photograph: Sarah Lee

A jewelled tutu and the layers of stiffened net which support it, this is the iconic Romantic ballet costume Photograph: Sarah Lee

An archive view of the White Lodge as a Royal residence - the christening of the future Edward VIII, who would abdicate to marry Mrs Simpson Photograph: Sarah Lee

Darcey Bussell's Royal Ballet school reports Photograph: Sarah Lee

The death mask of the legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova. She died in in a hotel in The Hague of pneumonia contracted after a train accident, weeks before her 50th birthday Photograph: Sarah Lee

An original watercolour from the Royal Ballet's enormous archive of set and costume designs Photograph: Sarah Lee

Visitors are encouraged to try the five positions of the feet in classical ballet Photograph: Sarah Lee

Margot Fonteyn's scrapbooks, recording her sensational first appearance in New York in 1949 Photograph: Sarah Lee