Costume design for Glycère from the final act of the opera Sapho by Charles Gounod

This drawing is the second design executed by Gustave Moreau in 1883 for Gounod's opera Sapho. According to letters dated from 3 August to 31 October 1883 at the Musée Gustave Moreau, Moreau's costume designs for Sapho did not result from a commission but rather a request for advice from Régnier, administrator of the Paris Opéra, through the introduction of Moreau's friend Elie Delaunay, who was involved in the decoration of the Opera. In a letter dated 3 August 1886 Régnier wrote: 'nous allons, vous le savez sans doute, remonter Sapho à l'Opera; nous voudrions, si c'est possible, sortir du poncif antique usité au theâtre; personne mieux que vous ne peux nous aider à cette tâche...'. During the summer of 1883, Moreau submitted an initial proposal of drawings for the main five characters. But his designs were considered too complicated. Moreau followed up with a second series in the autumn. This in turn was used by the Opera costume designer Eugène Lacoste, who copied Moreau's drawings. A copy by Lacoste after the present drawing can be found in the library of the Opéra (fig. 1, inv. D 216 37).
Moreau's drawings were subsequently sold, the proceeds going to the widow of the theatrical director of the Opéra, Auguste-Emmanuel Vaucorbeil, who died in 1884. P.-L. Mathieu refers to 23 drawings known through public auction and which include four further costumes for Glycère (P.-L. Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, Oxford, 1977, nos. 298-301).
Another design for Sapho, for the figure of Pïtaccus, is in the Woodner Collections (M. Morgan Grasselli, ed., The touch of the artist, Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections, exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1996, no. 111).
We are grateful to Geneviève Lacambre for her help in preparing this note.