The Russian Ballet in Western Europe, 1909-1920. PROPERT (W.A.)

The Russian Ballet in Western Europe, 1909-1920 By W. A. Propert With a Chapter on the Music by Eugene Goossens and Sixty-Three Illustrations from Original Drawings.

With an illustrated title page printed in red and black and decorations in the text by N. Gontcharova, five black and white portraits including frontispiece with tissue guards, and 66 illustrations tipped-in on 55 leaves of brown card, many in colour.

Limited to Five Hundred Copies for sale in Great Britain, of which this is number 213. 4to. [333 x 265 x 43 mm]. [1], xv, [4], 132 pp. Bound in publisher's quarter white cloth with marbled paper sides, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, with plain endleaves. (Spine and corners worn, gilt faded).

London: John Lane The Bodley Head Limited, 1921

The occasional light spotting and small mark. Small holes to the early leaves. Illustrated title page with detached tissue guard, two tissue guards with small marginal tears. A good copy.

Propert describes this work as the 'story of what the Ballet has done, and of the chain of happy accidents that led to its birth and even made it possible' (p.ix). In this highly illustrated volume, the plates represent the work of the main artists who contributed to the early days of the Ballets Russes: V. Serov, J. E. Blanche, Pablo Picasso, Glyn Philpot, A.R.A., Leon Bakst, A. Benois, A. Derain, I. Fedorovsky, A. Golovin, N. Gontcharova, M. Larionov, Henri Matisse, N. Roerich, J. M. Sert, and S. Soudeikine.

Stock no. ebc9104