Unsigned print by Ethelbert White of a scene from Mikhail Fokine's ballet Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, first produced Diaghilev Ballets Russes 1909.

A backdrop of sky and stylized hills in front of which, to left and right, domed nomadic tents. Centre stage, the Polovtsian chief dances flanked by his warriors and watched by the Polovtsian maidens.
The image is framed by a multiple line border.

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

The print depicts the dance of the Polovtsian Warriors in Mikhail Fokine's ballet Polovtsian Dances from Borodin's opera Prince Igor, designed by Nicholas Roerich, produced by Diaghilev Ballets Russes, 1909.
Uncoloured state of S.471-2000.
By the 1920s, there was an increasing interest in the Diaghilev Ballet and material relating to dance in general. Beaumont had already produced a series of booklets on individual Diaghilev Ballets under the series title Impressions of the Russian Ballet and a number of wooden cut-out Diaghilev dancers in their famous roles. He now decided to produce a series of hand coloured prints of typical scenes from the Diaghilev Ballet repertory. He kept no records of when he began publishing the prints nor how many were produced, although he reckoned about twenty. Beaumont's published book catalogues list 21 different prints, the work of Adrian Allinson, Ethelbert White and Randolf Schwabe who had all also worked on Impressions of the Russian Ballet booklets and the wooden figures, and Eileen Mayo.
In all these works, Beaumont strove to capture the exact moments of the ballet as well as artists' interpretations. Possibly the design of each print followed the painstaking search for accuracy that had characterised the creation of the illustrations for Impressions of the Russian Ballet series, described in Bookseller at the Ballet - choosing the significant moment, watching the ballet night after night to check details of the poses and grouping (not easy when the stage was full of individual dancers and movement), going backstage to sketch scenery and borrow costumes - although some prints appear to be 'composite' rather than specific tableaux.
Most of the hand-colouring for Impressions of the Russian Ballet booklets was the work of Beaumont and his wife, Alice, and it is possible that both were also involved in colouring the prints, although eventually other artists were employed on both projects.

Historical significance: The Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor was choreographed by Mikhail Fokine within the Borodin opera, but, performed as a separate work, was one of the most enduring and popular works in the Diaghilev Ballets Russes repertory. More than any other work, it showed Fokine's break from the Petipa tradition of ballet which, whatever the period or style of a work, demanded pointe shoes and tutu. The seeming barbaric ferocity of the choreography and the virile attack of the male dancers created a sensation on the opening night in Paris in 1909, and its success helped restore the reputation of the male dancer in Europe after half a century of neglect.

S.346-2001