Costume photograph taken backstage by Harry Lachman of the male Acrobat from Leonide Massine's ballet Parade. Nicholas Zverev wears all-over white body tights or leotard painted blue to give it decoration. It was still unusual for such costumes were accepted on the ballet stage but accepted for a circus figure. The original design may well have been painted by Picasso himself as he is recorded by Lopokova to have painted her costume on her body. These photographs may be compared the ply-wood souvenir figure S.684-2001 by Vera Willoughby/Petrovna which suggests Zverev’s costume was completed with a yellow-blonde wig.

This is one of 5 photographs of Zverev in a collection of 27 glass negatives of the ballet Parade, taken by Lachman of dancers in costumes for Parade, Traditionally credited to ‘Lachmann’, the photographs were taken by Harry Lachman (1886-1975), the film director and landscape artist. By 1917 he was a respected artists whose works entered the permanent collection of the Louvre and, in 1922, he was decorated Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur. He photographed artists including Picasso, Matisse and Monet and it must be assumed it was this link that led him to photograph Parade. A second significant photographer of Parade was the London-based Malcolm Arbuthnot (1877-1967) who recorded dancers in their costumes in 1919. While Victor du or de Bont recorded Vera Nemchinova and Nicholas Zverev as the two Acrobats ca. 1923.

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.