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Descriptif du lot
Léon Bakst attained a degree of fame in his own lifetime granted to very few artists. It was his work for the theatre – and above all, his designs for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes that brought him renown. Within Diaghilev’s theatrical enterprise, Bakst was chiefly entrusted with productions inspired by the Orient and the world of Classical antiquity. The ballerina Tamara Karsavina, who worked extensively with Bakst, recalled: ‘Passionately in love with everything Eastern, his imagination sparkled; the exotic and cruel East delighted him as much as the serene and detached world of antiquity.’ In 1909, Bakst designed Cléopâtre for Diaghilev, drawing upon the visual culture of late antiquity; the production was unanimously acclaimed by the Parisian critics as the sensation of the season.
The second Paris season of the Ballets Russes opened on 4 June 1910 with the premiere of Shéhérazade. As the eyewitness Jean Cocteau recalled: ‘The curtain rises, revealing a harem, an atmosphere of languor and sumptuous confinement; emerald tones - everything foretells the approaching catastrophe, and we sense the tension suspended in the air, presaging an imminent explosion.’ Before the audience unfolds a tale from the One Thousand and One Nights. In the Shah’s absence, his wife and concubines feast and surrender themselves to the Black slaves. The fury of the Shah, returning from the hunt, descends upon the revellers, while the proud Sultana Zobeide plunges a dagger into herself.
This drama of passion and treachery, set within the sweet, suffocating heat of the harem, was created by the choreographer Mikhail Fokine and the artist Léon Bakst, together with a brilliant ensemble of dancers led by Vaslav Nijinsky. Abandoning pointe work altogether, Fokine wove ensemble and solo dances into an exceptionally rich choreographic tapestry. Bakst had known Fokine since 1903, when he made his debut as a ballet designer with the première of The Fairy Doll at the Mariinsky Theatre. Fokine partnered Mathilde Kschessinska, who danced the leading role. From 1907, Bakst and Fokine, by then a choreographer, were both absorbed by the reform of theatrical costume. In ballets inspired by Antiquity, Bakst replaced tutus and pointe shoes with chitons and sandals; in his Eastern productions, with harem trousers and Oriental slippers.
Shéhérazade became the most resounding theatrical sensation in Europe in the early 20th century. Bakst astonished Paris with the production’s refined eroticism, the sumptuous extravagance of the East and an unprecedented chromatic daring: in his palette, blue was set beside green, violet against orange. These bold juxtapositions of pure colour were tempered by subtle modulations within each individual hue. The décor itself conjured an Oriental mirage of carpets, cushions and canopies, glowing in the colours of sapphires and emeralds, amethysts and amber.
Bakst devised five designs for the female costumes: one for the Shah’s wife and four for the different ranks of women inhabiting the harem: nine sultanas, three odalisques and ten concubines, designated as the ‘first almehs’ and ‘second almehs’. His designs for the male characters included the ‘costume of Shahriyar, ruler of India and China’, an equally sumptuous and historically faithful costume for his treacherous brother, and imaginative variations on the dress of slaves, eunuchs and warriors from the Shah’s retinue.
The success of Shéhérazade at its Paris premiere in 1910 was phenomenal. Writing to his wife, Bakst remarked: ‘…I confess, I had not expected such a resounding triumph. They say that Cléopâtre is mere child’s play by comparison.’ The designs for the sets and costumes were acquired by the French national museums. Bakst’s fame soared: within Diaghilev’s enterprise in the years preceding the First World War, he eclipsed his fellow artists. The premiere of Shéhérazade heralded an extraordinary vogue for Bakst in the West.
From 1910 onwards, costume designs for this Oriental fantasy were offered at annual exhibitions throughout Europe and America, while leading European collectors eagerly sought out Bakst’s works. At an exhibition held at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in July 1910, Bakst presented costume and set designs for Cléopâtre and Shéhérazade. Writing to his wife, he observed: ‘At my exhibition, all 34 works have been sold, every single one, and repetitions have even been commissioned.’
This extraordinary popularity accounts for the considerable number of autograph repetitions of Bakst’s most celebrated compositions that survive within his oeuvre. Scholars have consequently devoted considerable effort to identifying the original conception - the first version of a design subsequently repeated in multiple iterations.
The close study of an original work of art can enable scholars to correct inaccuracies not only in their own research, but also in the memoirs of the creators themselves. The 1910 costume design for an odalisque from Shéhérazade, offered here, provides just such an opportunity, allowing us to reconsider an account in Bronislava Nijinska’s memoirs, published in New York in 1981 (Bronislava Nijinska, Early Memoirs, trans. and ed. Irina Nijinska, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981). Beside the figure, whose sense of movement is conveyed through both the fluidity of Bakst’s line and subtle gradations of colour, appears a schematic study of the costume. This drawing elucidates its construction, distinguishing the heavier fabrics from those conceived as light, translucent materials. Moreover, while the coloured figure is shown from behind, the accompanying study presents the costume from the front.
Bakst later returned to the odalisque costume design, omitting the schematic study of its frontal construction. The later version, likewise dated 1910, was published in L’Art décoratif de Léon Bakst (ill. 24). In 1973, it was reproduced by Charles Spencer as a work from the collection of François de Ganay (Charles Spencer, Leon Bakst, New York: Rizzoli, 1973, ill. XXXIII). The drawing is now in the collection of the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; its dimensions have not been published. The design offered here and the version reproduced in the 1913 publication differ only subtly in their colouring. In the present work, the crescent-shaped motifs ornamenting the harem trousers are rendered in green, while in the second version they appear in yellow.
In both designs, the odalisque’s features bear a striking resemblance to Bronislava Nijinska, who herself danced the role of an odalisque in Shéhérazade. The dance of the three odalisques opened the ballet: as the curtain rose, the audience was presented with three women of the lowest rank within the harem.
In both designs, the odalisque’s features bear a striking resemblance to Bronislava Nijinska, who herself danced the role in Shéhérazade. The dance of the three odalisques opened the ballet: as the curtain rose, the audience was presented with three of the lower-ranking inhabitants of the harem. Nijinska’s memoirs complement the recollections of Mikhail Fokine, the production’s choreographer, supplying details that his own account omits: ‘We sat on the floor, our legs crossed Turkish-style. Only our arms and the upper part of the body danced. Then we rose, pressing closely against one another so that our legs appeared to form the stem of a single flower. We raised our arms above our heads - and on stage appeared the bud of an enormous flower with tightly closed petals. Then, swaying from side to side and making undulating movements with our arms, we bent backwards until our fingers: the tips of the flower’s petals, touched the floor. The flower opened.’
In her memoirs, Nijinska also describes Bakst’s contribution to the choreography. He demonstrated Oriental movements that were unfamiliar to the dancers, suggesting that these had not been introduced by Fokine. During costume fittings, Bakst adjusted the designs to accommodate the individual physique of each performer. Scholars therefore had little reason to doubt that Nijinska, who participated in rehearsals from an early stage, had played a part in shaping the role of the odalisque. Nevertheless, an inscription in Bakst’s hand on the backboard of the design with the schematic costume study, however, records the names of the three dancers who appeared at the premiere: Vera Fokine, Sofie Fedoroff and Madame Poliakoff. Nijinska joined the production only later, taking over the role from one of these dancers - a circumstance she discreetly omits from her memoirs.
Across Bakst’s designs, the figures seem suspended in their Oriental poses. Both designs emphasise the beauty of the arched female back, left almost entirely bare. The bodice and patterned harem trousers are held in place by two jewelled clasps: a large one at the neck and a diminutive fastening at the waist. A strand of pearls falls from beneath the turban across the back. The supple young bodies, caught in a sensual dance, evoke the image of a flower of the East, an image brought vividly to life by the artist’s hand.
Shéhérazade, in Bakst’s designs, remained in the repertoire of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes from its creation in 1910 until the impresario’s death in 1929. The Ballets Russes gave its final performance of the ballet on 12 May 1929 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.
The Oriental costumes Bakst conceived for Shéhérazade sparked a decade-long fascination with the East that extended far beyond the theatre, permeating contemporary taste and influencing everyday dress. Bakst’s revolutionary approach to stage design would forever alter the visual language of ballet.
We are grateful to Elena Bespalova, art historian and researcher, for preparing this catalogue note.
The second Paris season of the Ballets Russes opened on 4 June 1910 with the premiere of Shéhérazade. As the eyewitness Jean Cocteau recalled: ‘The curtain rises, revealing a harem, an atmosphere of languor and sumptuous confinement; emerald tones - everything foretells the approaching catastrophe, and we sense the tension suspended in the air, presaging an imminent explosion.’ Before the audience unfolds a tale from the One Thousand and One Nights. In the Shah’s absence, his wife and concubines feast and surrender themselves to the Black slaves. The fury of the Shah, returning from the hunt, descends upon the revellers, while the proud Sultana Zobeide plunges a dagger into herself.
This drama of passion and treachery, set within the sweet, suffocating heat of the harem, was created by the choreographer Mikhail Fokine and the artist Léon Bakst, together with a brilliant ensemble of dancers led by Vaslav Nijinsky. Abandoning pointe work altogether, Fokine wove ensemble and solo dances into an exceptionally rich choreographic tapestry. Bakst had known Fokine since 1903, when he made his debut as a ballet designer with the première of The Fairy Doll at the Mariinsky Theatre. Fokine partnered Mathilde Kschessinska, who danced the leading role. From 1907, Bakst and Fokine, by then a choreographer, were both absorbed by the reform of theatrical costume. In ballets inspired by Antiquity, Bakst replaced tutus and pointe shoes with chitons and sandals; in his Eastern productions, with harem trousers and Oriental slippers.
Shéhérazade became the most resounding theatrical sensation in Europe in the early 20th century. Bakst astonished Paris with the production’s refined eroticism, the sumptuous extravagance of the East and an unprecedented chromatic daring: in his palette, blue was set beside green, violet against orange. These bold juxtapositions of pure colour were tempered by subtle modulations within each individual hue. The décor itself conjured an Oriental mirage of carpets, cushions and canopies, glowing in the colours of sapphires and emeralds, amethysts and amber.
Bakst devised five designs for the female costumes: one for the Shah’s wife and four for the different ranks of women inhabiting the harem: nine sultanas, three odalisques and ten concubines, designated as the ‘first almehs’ and ‘second almehs’. His designs for the male characters included the ‘costume of Shahriyar, ruler of India and China’, an equally sumptuous and historically faithful costume for his treacherous brother, and imaginative variations on the dress of slaves, eunuchs and warriors from the Shah’s retinue.
The success of Shéhérazade at its Paris premiere in 1910 was phenomenal. Writing to his wife, Bakst remarked: ‘…I confess, I had not expected such a resounding triumph. They say that Cléopâtre is mere child’s play by comparison.’ The designs for the sets and costumes were acquired by the French national museums. Bakst’s fame soared: within Diaghilev’s enterprise in the years preceding the First World War, he eclipsed his fellow artists. The premiere of Shéhérazade heralded an extraordinary vogue for Bakst in the West.
From 1910 onwards, costume designs for this Oriental fantasy were offered at annual exhibitions throughout Europe and America, while leading European collectors eagerly sought out Bakst’s works. At an exhibition held at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in July 1910, Bakst presented costume and set designs for Cléopâtre and Shéhérazade. Writing to his wife, he observed: ‘At my exhibition, all 34 works have been sold, every single one, and repetitions have even been commissioned.’
This extraordinary popularity accounts for the considerable number of autograph repetitions of Bakst’s most celebrated compositions that survive within his oeuvre. Scholars have consequently devoted considerable effort to identifying the original conception - the first version of a design subsequently repeated in multiple iterations.
The close study of an original work of art can enable scholars to correct inaccuracies not only in their own research, but also in the memoirs of the creators themselves. The 1910 costume design for an odalisque from Shéhérazade, offered here, provides just such an opportunity, allowing us to reconsider an account in Bronislava Nijinska’s memoirs, published in New York in 1981 (Bronislava Nijinska, Early Memoirs, trans. and ed. Irina Nijinska, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981). Beside the figure, whose sense of movement is conveyed through both the fluidity of Bakst’s line and subtle gradations of colour, appears a schematic study of the costume. This drawing elucidates its construction, distinguishing the heavier fabrics from those conceived as light, translucent materials. Moreover, while the coloured figure is shown from behind, the accompanying study presents the costume from the front.
Bakst later returned to the odalisque costume design, omitting the schematic study of its frontal construction. The later version, likewise dated 1910, was published in L’Art décoratif de Léon Bakst (ill. 24). In 1973, it was reproduced by Charles Spencer as a work from the collection of François de Ganay (Charles Spencer, Leon Bakst, New York: Rizzoli, 1973, ill. XXXIII). The drawing is now in the collection of the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; its dimensions have not been published. The design offered here and the version reproduced in the 1913 publication differ only subtly in their colouring. In the present work, the crescent-shaped motifs ornamenting the harem trousers are rendered in green, while in the second version they appear in yellow.
In both designs, the odalisque’s features bear a striking resemblance to Bronislava Nijinska, who herself danced the role of an odalisque in Shéhérazade. The dance of the three odalisques opened the ballet: as the curtain rose, the audience was presented with three women of the lowest rank within the harem.
In both designs, the odalisque’s features bear a striking resemblance to Bronislava Nijinska, who herself danced the role in Shéhérazade. The dance of the three odalisques opened the ballet: as the curtain rose, the audience was presented with three of the lower-ranking inhabitants of the harem. Nijinska’s memoirs complement the recollections of Mikhail Fokine, the production’s choreographer, supplying details that his own account omits: ‘We sat on the floor, our legs crossed Turkish-style. Only our arms and the upper part of the body danced. Then we rose, pressing closely against one another so that our legs appeared to form the stem of a single flower. We raised our arms above our heads - and on stage appeared the bud of an enormous flower with tightly closed petals. Then, swaying from side to side and making undulating movements with our arms, we bent backwards until our fingers: the tips of the flower’s petals, touched the floor. The flower opened.’
In her memoirs, Nijinska also describes Bakst’s contribution to the choreography. He demonstrated Oriental movements that were unfamiliar to the dancers, suggesting that these had not been introduced by Fokine. During costume fittings, Bakst adjusted the designs to accommodate the individual physique of each performer. Scholars therefore had little reason to doubt that Nijinska, who participated in rehearsals from an early stage, had played a part in shaping the role of the odalisque. Nevertheless, an inscription in Bakst’s hand on the backboard of the design with the schematic costume study, however, records the names of the three dancers who appeared at the premiere: Vera Fokine, Sofie Fedoroff and Madame Poliakoff. Nijinska joined the production only later, taking over the role from one of these dancers - a circumstance she discreetly omits from her memoirs.
Across Bakst’s designs, the figures seem suspended in their Oriental poses. Both designs emphasise the beauty of the arched female back, left almost entirely bare. The bodice and patterned harem trousers are held in place by two jewelled clasps: a large one at the neck and a diminutive fastening at the waist. A strand of pearls falls from beneath the turban across the back. The supple young bodies, caught in a sensual dance, evoke the image of a flower of the East, an image brought vividly to life by the artist’s hand.
Shéhérazade, in Bakst’s designs, remained in the repertoire of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes from its creation in 1910 until the impresario’s death in 1929. The Ballets Russes gave its final performance of the ballet on 12 May 1929 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.
The Oriental costumes Bakst conceived for Shéhérazade sparked a decade-long fascination with the East that extended far beyond the theatre, permeating contemporary taste and influencing everyday dress. Bakst’s revolutionary approach to stage design would forever alter the visual language of ballet.
We are grateful to Elena Bespalova, art historian and researcher, for preparing this catalogue note.