Drawing by Randolph Schwabe of Stanislas Idzikowski in his dressing room making up for the pas de deux Leonide Massine's ballet Cimarosiana, ca.1925. Pencil.
Idzikowski is seated on wooden chair beside a make-up table, facing right and making up his lips, holding a small mirror in the right hand. He is wearing all over silk tights with bold 'Wedgewood' medallions over thighs, stomach, around neck and uper arms linked by narrow bands of silver ribbons set with small balls. (A version of the costume survives in the Dance Museum, Stockholm). On the table, a ewer and basin, the round hat that completes his costume and sticks of greasepaint. On the wall to the left hangs a costume for the ballet Le Tricorne. Signed R Schwabe.
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Stanislas Idzikowski (1894-1977) was a Polish-born virtuoso dancer who joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1915. He acquired many roles created for Vaslav Nijinsky and was a major interpreter of Leonide Massine's choreography. He later became an important teacher of ballet in Britain.In 1920 Idzikowski created the male role in the Pas de deux in Act III of the opera L'Astuzie femminili, L'Astuce Feminine, (Women's Wiles) and continued to dance it when the act becme a stand-alone divertissement ballet in the later 1920s.
On the reverse labels relating to The Diaghilev Exhibition at the Edinburgh Festival, 1953, including a label with "Cyril Beaumont" in Richard Buckle (the exhibition organiser)'s hand and James Bourlet & Sons Ltd labels.
