Photographic negative glass plate of The Circus Managers [sic] originally performed by Zygmund Novak and George Oumansky, who introduced the Acrobats. One of a series of photographs by Harry Lachman taken backstage or in a workshop to show the costumes designed by Pablo Picasso for the Ballets Russes. Premiered in Paris in 1917 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, it had a libretto by Jean Cocteau, music by Erik Satie, and choreography by Léonide Massine.

The horse combines Picasso’s fascination with African masks and ‘cheval jupon’ acts of Parisian circuses, the equivalent of the pantomime horse in Britain. The Fratellini Brothers at the Cirque Médrano, Paris, were performing such an act in 1917. The manager was described by Beaumont as ‘evidently in charge of an equestrian section of the troupe. He is suggested by a dummy negro faultlessly attired in evening dress and mounted on a horse of unusual equine intelligence.’ Initially the dummy could not be securely fixed and fell off so for Paris and Madrid in 1917 the horse performed alone a practice followed from 1973 in reconstructions of the ballet. However, evidence shows that the problem was solved for the 1919 London performances and the dummy was securely back in the saddle. The body of the horse is inspired by the traditional comic act while it is suggested that the head of Parade’s beast shared similarities with the ‘Goli and Baule helmet masks and Fang masks from the Cameroon as well as the ape masks of the Senufo tribe from the Sudan’.