Léon Bakst

(1866 - 1924)

6287

Lev Bakst

Феа кукол

Fairy dolls

St. Petersburg: Sv Evgenia, 1904

140 x 90 mm 12 cards

Edition: unknown.

A series of 12 numbered postcards in their original.enveloppe, dated on card nr. 3. The doll’s fairy was the second theatrical production of Bakst after Le Coeur de la Marquise in 1901. The interpretations of the classical dress for this ballet were new in the Russian theatres. Bakst worked with enthusiasm at the Ballet because at that time he was in love with Liubov Pavlovna, whom he portrayed as a doll in a black Paris dress and big hat in the very forefront of the stage design for everyone to recognize. Although a marriage between a gentile and a Jew was complicated, as the Russian law of that time demanded that the Jew should change within his faith, the pair managed to marry in the end, without having Bakst change his faith and by overcoming the indignant resistance of Liubov‘s Muscovite relations. The happy atmosphere is presented in the costumes that were an enchantment for the eye. The Ballet was performed for the first time on February 7, 1903 in St. Petersburg and Bakst scored one of his biggest successes in Russia with these new and fresh theatrical ideas. The twelve postcards with the costume designs of the ballet were sold as a complete set in an envelope by the Society Saint Eugenia. This welfare society also printed journals and books ‘for the education and elevation of the masses’ and acted as a Russian version of the Red Cross.

References:

Benois 1947, p. 228

New Brunswick 1999, p. 87