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Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
ERTÉ [ROMAIN DE TIRTOFF 1892-1990] Ganna Walska as Mélisande. Costume for Act I, Scene 3 of a private production of Claude Debussy's opera, Pelléas et Mélisande at her Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris in 1931. Gouache heightened in silver. 320x120 mm; 12 1/4x4 3/4 inches, on 16 1/2x8 1/4-inch sheet. Signed lower right (in silver); captioned and with Erté's address on verso.
Provenance: Grosvenor Gallery, New York to current private collection. Erté created numerous costumes in Chicago and Paris for Walska, the premiere opera singer of her day, and quite the diva. This costume for Walska's own Théâtre des Champs-Élysées was created for an invitation-only performance of the opera and based upon one he created three years earlier for Lucrezia Bori who played Mélisande at the Metropolitan Opera, which was Erté's only design work for the Met. The finished design is in the Costume and Textile collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California.
![ERTÉ [ROMAIN DE TIRTOFF 1892-1990] Ganna Walska as Mélisande. [OPERA]](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/full//864\782864.jpg)
