This is one of 3 images of Léonide Massine in costume for the role of the Chinese Conjuror acquired as part of a collection of 27 glass negatives of the ballet Parade, taken by the photographerHarry Lachman. Parade was first staged by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, in 1917. It had a libretto by Jean Cocteau, music by Erik Satie, and costumes and sets designed by Pablo Picasso. The choreographer, Léonide Massine, danced the role of the Chinese Conjuror.

As Massine described his own costume as ‘a mandarin jacket and floppy trousers’. The voluminous bright red silk jacket, which was fastened by 3 side toggles, has yellow appliquéd decoration suggesting the rising sun and a yellow stand-up collar. The wide cuffs on the surviving tunic were trimmed with orange and gold. The costume is completed by cut-off black and yellow trousers which reach to the lower calf and a tri-coloured multi-peaked head dress. The original was apparently attached to skull-cap with a long, braided queue or as Beaumont noted ‘the plaited pigtail so necessary to a Chinaman’s exterior’. Beaumont also described that the conjuror wears ‘broad-soled shoes’ suggesting those of Picasso’s drawing rather than Lachmann’s photographs. Picasso designed precise make-up for Massine. Again Beaumont describes it ; ‘‘His face is sallow, the eye-brows curved in an expression of bland surprise, and the thick red lips are parted in a faint smile at once mysterious and secretive.’