Jun 05, 2018 - Sale 2480

Sale 2480 - Lot 155

Price Realized: $ 5,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
ERTÉ. [ROMAIN DE TIRTOFF.]
"Californie." Original costume design for the revue "American Millionairess," a collaborative effort with Madame Bénédicte Rasimi at Thêatre Fémina, Paris, 1917. Gouache with ground-powdered bronze on thin board. 216x165 mm; 8 1/2x6 1/2 inches, on 10 1/2x7 1/2-inch board. Signed in lower left image, with artist's notes, title, date, and stamp on verso. Elaborately matted and framed.

Additional Details

A beautiful and intricate costume design by Erté, created for a revue by one of his early and important collaborators and patrons. Madame Rasini was a pioneer of French music-hall who directed both the famous Ba-ta-Clan Theatre, Paris, and the New Middlesex Theatre in London. Extremely impressed with Erté's designs for "La Fête de St. Cyr" in Monte Carlo in 1915, she invited him to create costumes and set designs for her lavish revues. She was an impressario with wealth, taste, and experience which allowed the artist's creativity to flourish. It was under her patronage that he expanded his use of complex jewel-strung costumes which he simulated with meticulous dots of gouache and metallic paint for this and similar designs.