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Lot Essay
Léon Bakst attained a degree of fame in his own lifetime granted to very few artists. It was his work for the theatre – and above all, his designs for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes that brought him renown. Within Diaghilev’s theatrical enterprise, Bakst was chiefly entrusted with productions inspired by the Orient and the world of Classical antiquity. The ballerina Tamara Karsavina, who worked extensively with Bakst, recalled: ‘Passionately in love with everything Eastern, his imagination sparkled; the exotic and cruel East delighted him as much as the serene and detached world of antiquity.’ In 1909, Bakst designed Cléopâtre for Diaghilev, drawing upon the visual culture of late antiquity; the production was unanimously acclaimed by the Parisian critics as the sensation of the season.
The second Paris season of the Ballets Russes opened on 4 June 1910 with the premiere of Shéhérazade. As the eyewitness Jean Cocteau recalled: ‘The curtain rises, revealing a harem, an atmosphere of languor and sumptuous confinement; emerald tones - everything foretells the approaching catastrophe, and we sense the tension suspended in the air, presaging an imminent explosion.’ Before the audience unfolds a tale from the One Thousand and One Nights. In the Shah’s absence, his wife and concubines feast and surrender themselves to the Black slaves. The fury of the Shah, returning from the hunt, descends upon the revellers, while the proud Sultana Zobeide plunges a dagger into herself.
This drama of passion and treachery, set within the sweet, suffocating heat of the harem, was created by the choreographer Mikhail Fokine and the artist Léon Bakst, together with a brilliant ensemble of dancers led by Vaslav Nijinsky. Abandoning pointe work altogether, Fokine wove ensemble and solo dances into an exceptionally rich choreographic tapestry. Bakst had known Fokine since 1903, when he made his debut as a ballet designer with the première of The Fairy Doll at the Mariinsky Theatre. Fokine partnered Mathilde Kschessinska, who danced the leading role. From 1907, Bakst and Fokine, by then a choreographer, were both absorbed by the reform of theatrical costume. In ballets inspired by Antiquity, Bakst replaced tutus and pointe shoes with chitons and sandals; in his Eastern productions, with harem trousers and Oriental slippers.
Shéhérazade became the most resounding theatrical sensation in Europe in the early 20th century. Bakst astonished Paris with the production’s refined eroticism, the sumptuous extravagance of the East and an unprecedented chromatic daring: in his palette, blue was set beside green, violet against orange. These bold juxtapositions of pure colour were tempered by subtle modulations within each individual hue. The décor itself conjured an Oriental mirage of carpets, cushions and canopies, glowing in the colours of sapphires and emeralds, amethysts and amber.
Bakst devised five designs for the female costumes: one for the Shah’s wife and four for the different ranks of women inhabiting the harem: nine sultanas, three odalisques and ten concubines, designated as the ‘first almehs’ and ‘second almehs’. His designs for the male characters included the ‘costume of Shahriyar, ruler of India and China’, an equally sumptuous and historically faithful costume for his treacherous brother, and imaginative variations on the dress of slaves, eunuchs and warriors from the Shah’s retinue.
The success of Shéhérazade at its Paris premiere in 1910 was phenomenal. Writing to his wife, Bakst remarked: ‘…I confess, I had not expected such a resounding triumph. They say that Cléopâtre is mere child’s play by comparison.’ The designs for the sets and costumes were acquired by the French national museums. Bakst’s fame soared: within Diaghilev’s enterprise in the years preceding the First World War, he eclipsed his fellow artists. The premiere of Shéhérazade heralded an extraordinary vogue for Bakst in the West.
From 1910 onwards, costume designs for this Oriental fantasy were offered at annual exhibitions throughout Europe and America, while leading European collectors eagerly sought out Bakst’s works. At an exhibition held at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in July 1910, Bakst presented costume and set designs for Cléopâtre and Shéhérazade. Writing to his wife, he observed: ‘At my exhibition, all 34 works have been sold, every single one, and repetitions have even been commissioned.’
This extraordinary popularity accounts for the considerable number of autograph repetitions of Bakst’s most celebrated compositions that survive within his oeuvre. Scholars have consequently devoted considerable effort to identifying the original conception - the first version of a design subsequently repeated in multiple iterations.
The costume design for a eunuch offered here can be regarded as the prototype for all subsequent related versions. Signed by the artist and dated 1910, the year of Shéhérazade’s triumph, it is further inscribed beside the figure in Bakst’s hand: ‘4 eunuques. In the ballet, the repose of the Shah’s harem is guarded by four eunuchs; at his waist, the chief eunuch wears a ring of keys to the place where the Black slaves are held in confinement. The languid Shah’s consort, together with the sultanas and odalisques, bribes the eunuchs with pearls and precious stones. The chief eunuch releases from their ‘golden cages’ the young slaves, starved of female company, and what follows is an orgy of a kind never before witnessed on the stage of France’s foremost musical theatre.
Against the emerald alcove, the guards’ red-orange caftans and yellow patterned harem trousers stand out vividly; daggers hang at their waists. Further confirmation that this design served as the originating model for all the others is provided by the inscription on its reverse. The surnames of the dancers who performed the roles of the eunuchs at the premiere on 4 June 1910 at the Paris Opéra are inscribed in the artist’s hand: Titoff, Gontcharoff, Cristonson and Présniakoff, all members of the corps de ballet.
At least five variants of the eunuch costume from Shéhérazade are known. In 1913, the lavishly produced volume L’Art décoratif de Léon Bakst appeared - a publication of a distinction to which few artists of the period could have aspired. The critical appraisal of Bakst’s oeuvre was entrusted to the French art critic Arsène Alexandre, while the accounts of the ballets he had designed were contributed by Jean Cocteau, then still at the outset of his literary career. Reproducing seventy-eight works by the artist, the volume effectively constitutes a compendium of works that came to define Bakst’s artistic legacy. Illustration 26 reproduces a design for the eunuch costume which at the time belonged to the Marquise de Ganay in Paris. The present whereabouts of the work are unknown. Its palette closely echoes that of the original, yet the proportions of the figure have been subtly reworked: the slight, almost fragile physique of the earlier conception is transformed into a more robust and distinctly masculine presence.
A third variant of the eunuch costume is reproduced in the official programme for the Ballets Russes’ 1916 American tour, Souvenir Serge de Diaghileff’s Ballet Russe, although the design itself is dated 1912. Its palette remains close to that of the two preceding versions, but a striking note of blue is introduced in the form of a sapphire-set ornament on the guardian’s sleeve. The figure also assumes a more menacing character, now armed with a yataghan.
A further variant, in which the figure is armed with a scimitar, was executed by Bakst on a larger sheet of heavy paper (67.4 x 49 cm; Harvard Theatre Collection) for an exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York. Signed and dated 1922, the design was shown in the exhibition New Works by Bakst. Its palette departs markedly from the earlier versions: the costume is conceived in a cool chromatic register, with a fuchsia caftan, a patterned violet sash and harem trousers striped in black and lilac.
Equally striking is a closely related counterpart design of 1918, created for Aladin, ou La Lampe merveilleuse by Georges Thenon (1884–1941), who worked under the pseudonym RIP, at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris, where the féerie premiered on 20 May 1919. The work is reproduced in E. Bespalova’s Bakst in Paris, BuksMArt, 2016, 2023, p. 162 (graphite, watercolour and gouache on paper, 48.5 x 32.5 cm., Private collection). In the Spaniard’s brilliantly variegated costume, cool tones of pink and turquoise are harmoniously juxtaposed with warm shades of yellow and terracotta. All five of these designs have firmly established provenance and are recognised as authentic works by Bakst. The present work, however, captures the artist’s earliest conception of the eunuch - the image in its first and most immediate formulation.
The Oriental costumes Bakst conceived for Shéhérazade sparked a decade-long fascination with the East that extended far beyond the theatre, permeating contemporary taste and influencing everyday dress. Bakst’s revolutionary approach to stage design would forever alter the visual language of ballet.
We are grateful to Elena Bespalova, art historian and researcher, for preparing this catalogue note.
The second Paris season of the Ballets Russes opened on 4 June 1910 with the premiere of Shéhérazade. As the eyewitness Jean Cocteau recalled: ‘The curtain rises, revealing a harem, an atmosphere of languor and sumptuous confinement; emerald tones - everything foretells the approaching catastrophe, and we sense the tension suspended in the air, presaging an imminent explosion.’ Before the audience unfolds a tale from the One Thousand and One Nights. In the Shah’s absence, his wife and concubines feast and surrender themselves to the Black slaves. The fury of the Shah, returning from the hunt, descends upon the revellers, while the proud Sultana Zobeide plunges a dagger into herself.
This drama of passion and treachery, set within the sweet, suffocating heat of the harem, was created by the choreographer Mikhail Fokine and the artist Léon Bakst, together with a brilliant ensemble of dancers led by Vaslav Nijinsky. Abandoning pointe work altogether, Fokine wove ensemble and solo dances into an exceptionally rich choreographic tapestry. Bakst had known Fokine since 1903, when he made his debut as a ballet designer with the première of The Fairy Doll at the Mariinsky Theatre. Fokine partnered Mathilde Kschessinska, who danced the leading role. From 1907, Bakst and Fokine, by then a choreographer, were both absorbed by the reform of theatrical costume. In ballets inspired by Antiquity, Bakst replaced tutus and pointe shoes with chitons and sandals; in his Eastern productions, with harem trousers and Oriental slippers.
Shéhérazade became the most resounding theatrical sensation in Europe in the early 20th century. Bakst astonished Paris with the production’s refined eroticism, the sumptuous extravagance of the East and an unprecedented chromatic daring: in his palette, blue was set beside green, violet against orange. These bold juxtapositions of pure colour were tempered by subtle modulations within each individual hue. The décor itself conjured an Oriental mirage of carpets, cushions and canopies, glowing in the colours of sapphires and emeralds, amethysts and amber.
Bakst devised five designs for the female costumes: one for the Shah’s wife and four for the different ranks of women inhabiting the harem: nine sultanas, three odalisques and ten concubines, designated as the ‘first almehs’ and ‘second almehs’. His designs for the male characters included the ‘costume of Shahriyar, ruler of India and China’, an equally sumptuous and historically faithful costume for his treacherous brother, and imaginative variations on the dress of slaves, eunuchs and warriors from the Shah’s retinue.
The success of Shéhérazade at its Paris premiere in 1910 was phenomenal. Writing to his wife, Bakst remarked: ‘…I confess, I had not expected such a resounding triumph. They say that Cléopâtre is mere child’s play by comparison.’ The designs for the sets and costumes were acquired by the French national museums. Bakst’s fame soared: within Diaghilev’s enterprise in the years preceding the First World War, he eclipsed his fellow artists. The premiere of Shéhérazade heralded an extraordinary vogue for Bakst in the West.
From 1910 onwards, costume designs for this Oriental fantasy were offered at annual exhibitions throughout Europe and America, while leading European collectors eagerly sought out Bakst’s works. At an exhibition held at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in July 1910, Bakst presented costume and set designs for Cléopâtre and Shéhérazade. Writing to his wife, he observed: ‘At my exhibition, all 34 works have been sold, every single one, and repetitions have even been commissioned.’
This extraordinary popularity accounts for the considerable number of autograph repetitions of Bakst’s most celebrated compositions that survive within his oeuvre. Scholars have consequently devoted considerable effort to identifying the original conception - the first version of a design subsequently repeated in multiple iterations.
The costume design for a eunuch offered here can be regarded as the prototype for all subsequent related versions. Signed by the artist and dated 1910, the year of Shéhérazade’s triumph, it is further inscribed beside the figure in Bakst’s hand: ‘4 eunuques. In the ballet, the repose of the Shah’s harem is guarded by four eunuchs; at his waist, the chief eunuch wears a ring of keys to the place where the Black slaves are held in confinement. The languid Shah’s consort, together with the sultanas and odalisques, bribes the eunuchs with pearls and precious stones. The chief eunuch releases from their ‘golden cages’ the young slaves, starved of female company, and what follows is an orgy of a kind never before witnessed on the stage of France’s foremost musical theatre.
Against the emerald alcove, the guards’ red-orange caftans and yellow patterned harem trousers stand out vividly; daggers hang at their waists. Further confirmation that this design served as the originating model for all the others is provided by the inscription on its reverse. The surnames of the dancers who performed the roles of the eunuchs at the premiere on 4 June 1910 at the Paris Opéra are inscribed in the artist’s hand: Titoff, Gontcharoff, Cristonson and Présniakoff, all members of the corps de ballet.
At least five variants of the eunuch costume from Shéhérazade are known. In 1913, the lavishly produced volume L’Art décoratif de Léon Bakst appeared - a publication of a distinction to which few artists of the period could have aspired. The critical appraisal of Bakst’s oeuvre was entrusted to the French art critic Arsène Alexandre, while the accounts of the ballets he had designed were contributed by Jean Cocteau, then still at the outset of his literary career. Reproducing seventy-eight works by the artist, the volume effectively constitutes a compendium of works that came to define Bakst’s artistic legacy. Illustration 26 reproduces a design for the eunuch costume which at the time belonged to the Marquise de Ganay in Paris. The present whereabouts of the work are unknown. Its palette closely echoes that of the original, yet the proportions of the figure have been subtly reworked: the slight, almost fragile physique of the earlier conception is transformed into a more robust and distinctly masculine presence.
A third variant of the eunuch costume is reproduced in the official programme for the Ballets Russes’ 1916 American tour, Souvenir Serge de Diaghileff’s Ballet Russe, although the design itself is dated 1912. Its palette remains close to that of the two preceding versions, but a striking note of blue is introduced in the form of a sapphire-set ornament on the guardian’s sleeve. The figure also assumes a more menacing character, now armed with a yataghan.
A further variant, in which the figure is armed with a scimitar, was executed by Bakst on a larger sheet of heavy paper (67.4 x 49 cm; Harvard Theatre Collection) for an exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York. Signed and dated 1922, the design was shown in the exhibition New Works by Bakst. Its palette departs markedly from the earlier versions: the costume is conceived in a cool chromatic register, with a fuchsia caftan, a patterned violet sash and harem trousers striped in black and lilac.
Equally striking is a closely related counterpart design of 1918, created for Aladin, ou La Lampe merveilleuse by Georges Thenon (1884–1941), who worked under the pseudonym RIP, at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris, where the féerie premiered on 20 May 1919. The work is reproduced in E. Bespalova’s Bakst in Paris, BuksMArt, 2016, 2023, p. 162 (graphite, watercolour and gouache on paper, 48.5 x 32.5 cm., Private collection). In the Spaniard’s brilliantly variegated costume, cool tones of pink and turquoise are harmoniously juxtaposed with warm shades of yellow and terracotta. All five of these designs have firmly established provenance and are recognised as authentic works by Bakst. The present work, however, captures the artist’s earliest conception of the eunuch - the image in its first and most immediate formulation.
The Oriental costumes Bakst conceived for Shéhérazade sparked a decade-long fascination with the East that extended far beyond the theatre, permeating contemporary taste and influencing everyday dress. Bakst’s revolutionary approach to stage design would forever alter the visual language of ballet.
We are grateful to Elena Bespalova, art historian and researcher, for preparing this catalogue note.