Not currently on display at the V&A

Costume Design

1945 (designed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The Sleeping Beauty, designed for the Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet in 1946, is Messel's most enduring production. The fairy costumes and fantasy elements he anchored in a 'real' world, inspired by the soaring architectural fantasies of the 17th and 18th centuries and costumes based upon mid-late 17th-century fashions, mixing English, Spanish and French period styles.

Princess Aurora wore this costume in Act II, when she appears as a vision to Prince Florimund. The Sleeping Beauty can be seen as an allegory of the seasons, so for Act II of the ballet, Messel created a bleak setting, befitting the winter of the Princess's sleep. Her costume, icy, silver and white, with overtones of water in the shells and flow of the decoration, mirroring the moonlight setting and her frozen state as she sleeps for one hundred years.

The drawing of the figure is sketchy compared with the costume. Messel never spent much time on drawing realistic figures (indeed he often had the figures duplicated), and the concentration is always on the detail and colour of the costumes.

Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well as working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Charcoal, pencil, gouache, paint, watercolour on paper
Brief description
Costume design by Oliver Messel for Princess Aurora in Act II of Marius Petipa's ballet The Sleeping Beauty, Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet, 1946 or later revision.
Physical description
Costume design for Princess Aurora in the ballet The Sleeping Beauty. Full-length female figure wearing a classical tutu with white skirt, the bodice peeling back from the centre front to form long shell-like shapes, the hips covered with trailing 'weeds'. The shell motifs are continued in the elaborate headdress.
Dimensions
  • Height: 54.2cm
  • Width: 38cm
Production typeDesign
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'Oliver Messel' (Artist's signature in pencil on the bottom right-hand corner on the front of the sheet.)
  • '48' (Pencil inscription on the back of the sheet.)
Credit line
Acquired with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Art Fund and the Friends of the V&A
Object history
Oliver Messel designed The Sleeping Beauty, Marius Petipa and Tchaikovsky's masterpiece, in 1946 for the Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet, the production with which the company reopened the Royal Opera House after its wartime use as a dance hall. The production was in the repertory for nearly twenty-five years. Messel revised the designs several times, with major revisions in 1952 and 1960 and he reworked the designs when the production was mounted in 1959 for the Royal Ballet Touring Company.
Lord Snowdon, Oliver Messel's nephew, inherited Messel's theatre designs and other designs and artefacts. The designs were briefly stored in a disused chapel in Kensington Palace before being housed at the V&A from 1981 on indefinite loan. The V&A Theatre Museum purchased the Oliver Messel collection from Lord Snowdon in 2005.

Historical significance: The production of The Sleeping Beauty was an immediate success and established itself as the Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet's 'signature' work, associated with many key events in the company's history. These included their first sensational appearance in New York in 1949 (which established the company's international reputation in America) and Russia in 1961, when they took the ballet, performed by a British company barely thirty years old, back to the place of its birth in St Petersburg. Messel's designs were a significant part of the ballet's success. Sarah Woodcock said of this production “The Sleeping Beauty was to be Messel’s biggest and most enduring production … The production was performed nearly one thousand one hundred and fifty times, from London to Los Angeles, from Leeds to Leningrad, becoming the Company’s ‘signature ballet’.” (Pinkham, ed., 1983).
Production
This might be a revised design for a later revival of the production.

Reason For Production: Commission
Literary reference<i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>
Summary
The Sleeping Beauty, designed for the Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet in 1946, is Messel's most enduring production. The fairy costumes and fantasy elements he anchored in a 'real' world, inspired by the soaring architectural fantasies of the 17th and 18th centuries and costumes based upon mid-late 17th-century fashions, mixing English, Spanish and French period styles.

Princess Aurora wore this costume in Act II, when she appears as a vision to Prince Florimund. The Sleeping Beauty can be seen as an allegory of the seasons, so for Act II of the ballet, Messel created a bleak setting, befitting the winter of the Princess's sleep. Her costume, icy, silver and white, with overtones of water in the shells and flow of the decoration, mirroring the moonlight setting and her frozen state as she sleeps for one hundred years.

The drawing of the figure is sketchy compared with the costume. Messel never spent much time on drawing realistic figures (indeed he often had the figures duplicated), and the concentration is always on the detail and colour of the costumes.

Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well as working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.
Associated object
Bibliographic reference
Pinkham, Roger (ed.) Oliver Messel, London, V&A, 1983
Other number
ROT 3350 - TM Rotation Number
Collection
Accession number
S.13-2006

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Record createdMay 4, 2006
Record URL
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