Painting by Adrian Paul Allinson of Tamara Karsavina as the Firebird in Mikhail Fokine’s L’oiseau de feu (The Firebird) ca. 1918. The painting shows the Firebird in the Bakst-designed costume against the set designed by Alexander Golovine. Bakst later redesigned the costumes for the principals, but the set and remaining costumes were in use until 1926, when the production was redesigned by Natalia Goncharova. This is a rare example of a painting of the Diaghilev Ballet which shows the dancer on stage in the setting and is an important record of how the ballet looked on stage.

Tamara Karsavina created the role of the Firebird in Mikhail Fokine's ballet to Igor Stravinsky's first score for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes on 25 June 1910 at the Théâtre National de l’Opéra, Paris. It was first performed in London on 18 June 1912 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London.
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The Firebird choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to Igor Stravinsky's first score composed for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes was the last ballet on the first programme by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes that Cyril Beaumont saw (either 18th or 24th) June 1912. Tamara Karsavina, who created the role of the mythical bird is seen en pointe under the tree of golden apples. As Karsavina explained when writing about The Firebird in The Dancing Times May 1954 'The bird of prey, endowed with a magic power, whose plumage is almost too dazzling to behold, comes every night at dawn to steal golden apples off the tree'. The elaborate gates to the enclosure may be seen in the background.

In the Diaghilev Ballet in London Beaumont described Karsavina’s appearance. ‘The costume which Bakst had designed for her was a charming conception, a woman’s head and shoulders emerging from a bird-like body. She wore a greenish bodice, the top trimmed with feathers, the lower ending in a mass of swansdown fitting close to the hips. Over her pink tights she wore trousers of fine orange gauze which, as they caught the light, made her legs seem to emanate an orange glow. Her hair was dressed in two long plaits which fell over her breast, while her head was covered with a cap decorated with curved feathers.’ The headdress in the painting appears higher than in photographs and the strings of pearls from ear-to-ear are noticeable.

Beaumont in Impressions of the Russian Ballet L’Oiseau de feu (1919) that at the start of the ballet, ‘In the performances given prior to the War, the stage was darkened completely except where the golden tree was bathed in a circle of orange light.’