On a moonlight night in the winter of 1835

the carriage of Marie Taglioni was halted by a Russian highwayman, and that enchanting creature was commanded to dance for this audience of one
upon a panther’s skin spread over the snow beneath the stars. From this actuality arose the legend that, to keep alive the memory
of this adventure so precious to her, Taglioni formed the habit of placing a piece of artificial ice in her jewel casket or dressing table
melting among the sparkling stones, there was evoked a hint of the atmosphere of the starlit heavens over the ice-covered landscape.
–From Joseph Cornell’s box construction Homage to the Romantic Ballet

cited in Dance Anecdotes: Stories from the Worlds of Ballet, Broadway, the Ballroom, and Modern Dance, ed. Mindy Aloff