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Description: signed in Latin and dated 1929 l.r. watercolour and gouache on paper

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Dimensions: 44.5 by 62cm., 17 1/2 by 24 1/2 in.

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Provenance: Professor N.L.Okunev, Prague
Thence by descent

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Published: V.Fiala, Russkaya zivopis' v sobraniyakh Chekhoslovakii, Leningrad: Xudoznik RSFSR, 1974, p.69-70 no.47 (illustrated)

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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, GERMANY
This set design for unrealised opera, Auric's Enchantements d'Alcine, came in a year when the future of the Ballets Russes appeared uncertain. Sergei Diaghilev died in Venice on 19th August 1929 which prompted many to question the longevity of his company. A journalist for the Daily Express summarised his feelings when he wrote, " I do not think the ballet will long survive. There is all the machinery, but no driving force. The man who built the machine is dead... Without the puppet master who pulls the strings the members of the ballet are only lifeless toys. The puppets are sad little things just now." (cited in V.Garcia-Marquez, The Ballets Russes: Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo 1932-152. New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1990) Despite Colonel de Basil's success at resurrecting the Ballets-Russes under a new guise in Monte Carlo and some successful tours of the United States, they would never again capture the pioneering innovation of Diaghilev, Benois and all the artists, composers, dancers and choreographers which gave the performances of 1906-1929 such energy and dynamism.