Nicholas Roerich

Costume Design for a Polovtsian Warrior in many ways repeats the widely known and much published design for Konchak [the Polovtsian Khan] created by Nicholas Roerich in 1909 for Fedor Chaliapin who sang the role in Borodin’s opera Prince Igor. It is one of five discovered costume designs for Polovtsians that Roerich created for the first staging of the opera by Diaghilev’s enterprise in Paris. The best known and first exhibited design for Konchak originally belonged to Elena Roerich, the artist’s wife; the second, in half-profile, to the singer Fedor Chaliapin; the third, to the choreographer Mikhail Fokine; the fourth, and most valuable being painted in tempera on board, was acquired from the artist by the Moscow collector Mrs Fetisova; the fifth, according to both published and unpublished lists of works by Roerich, is the design for a Polovtsian (or Polovchin) which ended up in an unnamed collection in London.

As we know the provenance of the present lot places it in the United Kingdom. Given its unfinished quality, one could suppose that it was originally intended as a reference for a make-up artist or wardrobe director to work from when creating the costume for Fedor Chaliapin in the role of the Polovtsian Khan for the Paris or London stages.

We are grateful to Dr Elena Yakovleva, art historian and senior research fellow of the Russian Institute of Art History, for providing additional catalogue information.