Not currently on display at the V&A

Costume Design

1930s (Drawn)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Full length female figure with close curled yellow brown hair, on pointe with arms curved above head, wearing close fitting low-cut blue bodice with shoulder straps and central white crosses simulating lacing. The top thigh length skirt is decorated with all-over pale grey brown squiggles. The shoes are blue with blue cross-gartering. The upper body and legs are washed in flesh tones with facial features in yellow brown. Around the figure is a pencil frame. Pencil and watercolour. The paper beyond the frame is smudged with watercolour.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Pencil and watercolour on paper
Brief description
Costume design by John Armstrong for the Polka in Frederick Ashton's ballet Facade, 1930s.
Physical description
Full length female figure with close curled yellow brown hair, on pointe with arms curved above head, wearing close fitting low-cut blue bodice with shoulder straps and central white crosses simulating lacing. The top thigh length skirt is decorated with all-over pale grey brown squiggles. The shoes are blue with blue cross-gartering. The upper body and legs are washed in flesh tones with facial features in yellow brown. Around the figure is a pencil frame. Pencil and watercolour. The paper beyond the frame is smudged with watercolour.
Dimensions
  • Irregular height: 192mm
  • Irregular width: 140mm
Production typeUnique
Marks and inscriptions
"1307" (Upper right hand corner; Handwriting; Pencil)
Credit line
Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest
Object history
The costume was designed by John Armstrong for the Polka in Frederick Ashton's ballet Facade. The ballet was premiered by the Camargo Society in 1931 and subsequently taken into the repertory of the Ballet Club (later Ballet Rambert) and the Vic-Wells (now Royal) Ballet with the same Armstrong designs. It is possible that this is a later redrawing either for the Vic-Wells Ballet staging or as illustration to a book on ballet design.
The design came to the Theatre Museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest, and the number "1307" indicates that it was originally part of the Ballet Guild collection that became part of the London Archives of the Dance. The Archives never achieved an independent home and part of the collection was stored with Cyril Beaumont, where it became inextricably mixed with his own collection and came to the Museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest.

Historical significance: A design for Ashton's first masterpiece and one of his most enduring ballets. In using the contemporary painter John Armstrong as designer, the ballet was following in the Diaghilev tradition of commissioning easel artists as stage designers.
Subject depicted
Collection
Accession number
S.249-2000

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Record createdDecember 14, 2000
Record URL
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