Costume Design thumbnail 1
Not currently on display at the V&A

Costume Design

1937 (Drawn)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Full length male figure wearing grey footless all-over tights, a silver eye mask and a top hat; the neck and ankle and at waist are trimmed silver, with a silver strip down the outer leg; loosely coiled around the upper body are silver ropes ending in large dark grey pom-poms. Pencil, watercolour and silver paint. Annotated, signed and dated.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Watercolour, silver paint and pencil on paper
Brief description
Costume design by George Kirsta for a dancer in the Carnival in Bronislava Nijinska's ballet The Beloved One (La bien aimee), produced by the Markova Dolin Ballet, 1937.
Physical description
Full length male figure wearing grey footless all-over tights, a silver eye mask and a top hat; the neck and ankle and at waist are trimmed silver, with a silver strip down the outer leg; loosely coiled around the upper body are silver ropes ending in large dark grey pom-poms. Pencil, watercolour and silver paint. Annotated, signed and dated.
Dimensions
  • Height: 332mm
  • Width: 250mm
Production typeUnique
Marks and inscriptions
  • "17." (Upper left hand corner; Handwriting; Watercolour)
  • "La bien aimee" (Textual information; French; Lower left hand corner; Handwriting; Watercolour)
    Translation
    The Beloved One
  • "George Kirsta / 1937" (Signature; date; Lower right hand corner; Handwriting; Watercolour)
  • Notes to the costumier with sketch of torso decoration (Textual information; Russian; Cyrillic; Reverse; Handwriting; Pencil)
  • "Haskel" (Carnaval)." (Textual information; Reverse; Handwriting; Pencil)
Credit line
Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest
Object history
This costume was designed by George Kirsta for one of the Carnival dancers in Bronislava Nijinska's ballet "The Beloved One" which she mounted for the Markova-Dolin Ballet in 1937 (she had choreographed the ballet for the Ida Rubinstein company in 1928). The design came to the Museum as part of the Cyril Beaumont Bequest and was probably acquired by him as illustration for his various publications on design for the ballet - of the seventeen costume designs for this ballet in his collection two and one set design were reproduced in Beaumont's "Design for the Ballet".
Subject depicted
Collection
Accession number
S.190-2000

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Record createdDecember 19, 2000
Record URL
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