Serge Lifar, Sixteen Drawings in Black and White - INSCRIBED BY LIFAR TO AN "ADMIRER OF 'BOUTIQUE FANTASQUE'

London: C. W. Beaumont. 1928. Serge Lifar, sixteen drawings in black and white by Eileen Mayo, with a foreword by Boris Kochno [...] and an appreciation by Cyril W. Beaumont. A large ribbon-bound portfolio of drawings of the important Ballets Russes dancer, later ballet master of the Paris Opera, by the English-born artist and designer Eileen Mayo. This copy inscribed by Lifar on the inside front cover in Russian "To the admirer of 'Boutique Fantasque' in good memory from Serge Lifar / London 1929 / Theatre Covent Garden." 500 copies issued, of which this is no. 21. 28 x 33.5 cm; 11 x 13 inches.  

Lifar made his debut at the Ballets Russes in 1923, where he became the principal dancer in 1925 and was considered the successor to Nijinsky. He was cast at the age of 21 opposite Tamara Karsavina in Nijinska's Roméo et Juliette (1926) ; Karsavina was twice his age. He originated leading roles in three Balanchine ballets for the Ballet Russes, including La Chatte (1927). 


La Boutique fantasque, also known as The Magic Toyshop or The Fantastic Toyshop, is a ballet in one act conceived by Massine to music by Ottorino Respighi based on piano pieces by Rossini. Lifar devised the choreography for the libretto written with the artist André Derain, who also designed the décor and costumes for the ballet.  It was first performed at the Alhambra Theatre in London on 5 June 1919, performed by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. 

Dame Eileen Rosemary Mayo, an English-born artist and designer, worked in England, Australia and New Zealand in almost every available medium — drawings, woodcuts, lithographs on stone and tempera, tapestry and silk screening. In addition to being a printmaker, illustrator, calligrapher and muralist, she designed coins, stamps, tapestry and posters, and wrote and illustrated eight books on natural science. (15143)

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