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Date: 1866-1924

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Description: signed and dated Bakst 1910 lower left; also inscribed Cléopâtre/ "Bacchanale" upper right

gouache, pencil and silver paint on paper laid down on board

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Dimensions: 11 x 8 1/2 in.

27.9 x 21.6 cm

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Notes: Cléopâtre, a choreographic drama in one act with music by Anton Arensky and additional extracts by other composers, including Bacchanale (from The Seasons) by Glazounov, choreography by Michel Fokine, and with principal dancers Anna Pavlova, Ida Rubinstein, Tamara Karsavina, Vaslav Nijinsky was first produced by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris on 2 June 1909.

Cléopâtre was a revised production by Fokine of his ballet Une nuit d'Egypte which had been first performed in Russia in 1908. In preparing for his first season of Russian ballet in Paris, Diaghilev decided to change the title of the ballet to Cléopâtre and certain changes were made to the music. The revised ballet created a sensation in Paris. The critic Camille Mauclair in La Revue asked: "What theatre of ours has ever put on dancing equal to that of the bacchanal in Cléopâtre?" It was so successful that it was repeated during the second season in June 1910 for which additional costumes were made. This explains the date of 1910 on some of the costume designs, including this particular drawing. An earlier design, probably executed in 1908 and with the same measurements, for a female Greek dancer in a matching pose in the same style of costume and with an identical tambourine was exhibited in Diaghilev: Les Ballets Russes at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris in 1979.

We are grateful to Alexandre Schouvaloff for kindly confirming the authenticity and assisting with the cataloguing of this lot.