Folio (321 x 270mm.), unnumbered copy from the limited edition of 512 copies of this poetic tribute to the great Russian prima ballerina, renowned for her beauty, who was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and later of the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev, where she was Nijinsky's chief partner.  Illustrated by George Barbier with 12 full-page pochoir colored plates in his characteristic Art Deco style. Text in French. Luxuriously bound in full pebbled black and brown leather, contained in a protective glassine cover and white card slipcase.  Light foxing and staining throughout, overall a very good copy.

“Tamara Karsavina became a legend in her own lifetime. Her technical perfection, wit, rare intelligence, and deep feeling made her a prima ballerina for all times” (Andros). Famed choreographer George Balanchine remembers being captivated by her when he was a student at the Imperial Ballet School in 1913. Several years earlier she had begun regular trips to Paris in order to dance with Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe. It was during this relationship that she created many of her most famous roles— particularly in the ballets of Mikhail Fokine, including “Petrushka,” “Le Spectre de la Rose,” and perhaps her most memorable performance in the title role of “Firebird”— opposite her ofttimes partner Vaslav Nijinsky. Novelist, poet, and art historian Jean-Louis Vaudoyer wrote the libretto for “Le Spectre de la Rose,” and here immortalizes Karsavina with a poem on each of her great roles. The designs in this splendid production are the work of Art Deco master George Barbier, who began his career as a costume and set designer for the Ballet Russes and later created décors and costumes for music-halls, movies and the Folies Bergère through Max Weldy Studios. Renowned for his fashion plates for the leading magazines of the time, including the Gazette du Bon Ton and Vogue, his artistic style is recognized by a characteristically elegant, stylized line. Text in French.