Hand coloured print by Ethelbert White of the Can-can in Leonide Massine's ballet La Boutique fantasque performed by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1919.

A male and female dancer perform the Can-can watched by a Russian family to the left, dressed in blues and greens, and an American family to the right dressed in yellows and blues while the shopkeeper wearing a white suit stands at the back and his assistant, wearing grey coat and check trousers and waistcoat, at the right. The walls of the room are brown orange, the large door and windows edged in yellow and to the right a 'window edged with a curtain with a bowl of fruit on the windowsill; through the windows can be seen a stylized landscape and lake with a paddle steamer in the centre. Print coloured by hand signed Ethelbert White.
The image is framed by a multiple line border one band of which is coloured yellow and one brown orange.

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

The print depicts the male and female Can-can dancers in Leonide Massine's ballet La Boutique fantasque, designed by André Derain, music by Rossini, produced by Diaghilev Ballets Russes in 1919. Two families, one Russian, one American, come to the 'boutique fantasque' where the shopkeeper displays his mechanical dolls, culminating in his 'star' creation, the Can-can dancers.
By the mid 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, mostly the work of Adrian Allinson, Ethelbert White and Randolf Schwabe who had 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: La Boutique fantasque showed Diaghilev turning away from Russia and Russian subjects and embracing European subjects and avant garde art, becoming an integral part of the European scene rather than an 'exotic'. Having employed Picasso for Parade and Le Tricorne, Diaghilev turned to the Fauvist artist Andre Derain, although Leon Bakst had begun work on the project and the abandonment of his designs led to his final break with Diaghilev.

Scene by Ethelbert Whiteshowing Leonide Massine's ballet La Boutique fantasque performed by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1919. A male and female dancer perform the Can-can watched by a Russian family and an American family in a setting with large door and windows to the back through which can be seen a stylized landscape and lake with a paddle steamer. Print coloured by hand with watercolour and gouache. Published ca.1920.

S.488-2000