Alexander Nikolaevich Benois

Sotheby’s London, Russian Pictures, 19 November 2003, lot 171

The Marriage of Psyche and Amour, or Cupid as he is more widely known, is a ballet based on the love story and eventual marriage between earthly beauty Psyche and the God of Love. The performances were given at L’Opéra de Paris in 1928 with music by Johann Sebastian Bach adapted by Arthur Honneger specifically. The choreography was provided by Bronislava Nizhinskaya and Leonid Massine.

Psyche was played by legendary ballerina, company director and icon of the Belle Époque, Ida Rubinstein. She and Benois worked together on a number of ballets for her company including Le Baiser de la Fée, David, Nocturne and La Princesse Cygne. Benois was particularly proud of his work with Rubinstein and took a great deal of credit for their success. In a letter to Mir Isskustva he wrote ‘the ballets with music by Bach, Honneger, Schubert, Liszt, Milhaud, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, Borodin and Cherepnin were entirely staged following my initiative and my drawings’ (A.Benois, Alexandre Benois Contemplates, 'Letter from 25 January 1929', Moscow, 1968, p.635).

Benois decorates his set design with the elegant figures of the wedding party which includes Olympian gods Neptune, Mars and Minerva. The guests look on as performers arrive through the glorious rococo baldachin to greet the bride and groom, who sit enthroned in equally magnificent structures.