Alexander Nikolaevich Benois

Alexandre Benois not only designed the ballet Pavillon d'Armide, but wrote the libretto and even directed its staging jointly with the choreographer Mikhail Fokine. After the ballet premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1907, a significantly reworked production opened the inaugural season of the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909. This drawing depicts a famous pas de trois from the latter staging. Fountains, with real water flowing in them, were a last minute addition in 1909, not envisaged in Benois' original designs. Furthermore, no one expected a priori the popularity of the pas de trois, in which Nijinsky shone, from which we can deduce that this drawing is a later illustration of the scene rather than a design as such. It was not unusual for Benois to recreate drawings of his most popular design projects as gifts and backdate them according to the original production (or occasionally to double-date). However, he never copied literally, and details of the garden layout, the palace, the fountains and the figures depicted vary considerably between the different versions in existence.