The painting is a copy of the Bakst designs and setting for Mikhail Fokine's ballet Le Dieu Bleu, which was premiered by the Diaghilev ballet in 1912 and first seen in London in 1913. In his book Bookseller at the Ballet, Cyril Beaumont describes how he was inspired by the designs for the Diaghilev Ballet and by the atmosphere of the studio of painter Adrian Allinson, to attempt painting himself, trying to copy reproductions of the designs while giving his own impressions of the ballet. To his surprise, he sold the first of his paintings, of Scheherazade, but Allinson's own reaction to Beaumont's work was 'he paints' rather than 'he is an artist'. In Bookseller at the Ballet, dance historian Cyril Beaumont describes how he was inspired by reproductions of designs for the Diaghilev Ballet and by the atmosphere of the studio of painter Adrian Allinson, to attempt painting himself, trying to copy reproductions of the designs while giving his own impressions of the ballet. To his surprise, he sold the first of his paintings, of Scheherazade, but Allinson's own reaction to Beaumont's work was 'he paints' rather than 'he is an artist'. Beaumont was given to 'enthusiasms' In the 1910s he aspired to be an artist, in the 1920s he aspired to run a ballet company. He was more successful as a bookseller, historian and writer.

As Beaumont noted that the best thing about Le Dieu bleu was its setting by Bakst with its great orange cliff with gigantic carved heads set against the deep blue of an Indian night sky. It was the image of this set reproduced in the souvenir programme that Beaumont copied.