Costume Design
1911 (drawn)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Leon Bakst's designs for Fokine's ballet Le Dieu Bleu were amongst his most elaborate but the ballet was old fashioned in its emphasis on design at the expense of dancing and was not a success. It was created during the 1912 season in Paris and was subsequently danced in London, Monaco, Buenos Aires and Berlin (in 1914). Although images of the ballet appear in the souvenir programmes for the Ballets Russes' tours of the USA it was never performed there.
This design for a young Rajah, a minor character not individually named in the programmes, shows fantastic detail in the feathered turban, pearl decoration and stylised shoes.
This design for a young Rajah, a minor character not individually named in the programmes, shows fantastic detail in the feathered turban, pearl decoration and stylised shoes.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Pencil, watercolour and gouache on paper |
| Brief description | Costume design by Leon Bakst for the Young Rajah in Mikhail Fokine's ballet Le Dieu Bleu, Diaghilev Ballets Russes, 1912. |
| Physical description | Costume design by Leon Bakst for the Young Rajah in Mikhail Fokine's ballet Le Dieu Bleu, Diaghilev Ballets Russes, 1912. Full length figure of a young man in a vivid yellow coat decorated all over with 'teardrop' motifs and edged with a broad white band trimmed with pearls. He has a turban, the front encrusted with pearls and decorated with an aigrette, and wears slippers with curled toes. |
| Dimensions |
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| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Object history | Purchased by Sir Phillip Sassoon from the Fine Arts Society in 1927. Possibly the design called A Rajah at the 1912 exhibition of Bakst's designs at the Fine Arts Society in 1912. Acquired by the V&A from John Carr Doughty |
| Summary | Leon Bakst's designs for Fokine's ballet Le Dieu Bleu were amongst his most elaborate but the ballet was old fashioned in its emphasis on design at the expense of dancing and was not a success. It was created during the 1912 season in Paris and was subsequently danced in London, Monaco, Buenos Aires and Berlin (in 1914). Although images of the ballet appear in the souvenir programmes for the Ballets Russes' tours of the USA it was never performed there. This design for a young Rajah, a minor character not individually named in the programmes, shows fantastic detail in the feathered turban, pearl decoration and stylised shoes. |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.338-1981 |
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| Record created | April 14, 2010 |
| Record URL |
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