Tanabe, Yasushi.

[THE JAPANESE RECEPTION OF THE PARISIAN BALLETS RUSSES] Roshian barē ishōshū [Design Collection of the Ballets Russes].

Tokyo: Koyosha, 1927. Octavo (22.4 × 15.3 cm). Original string-bound cardboard folder with printed original washi paper coating; 1 leaf, 30 single plates with reproductions of costume design drawings. Folder with traces of use and somewhat stained and toned; plates occasionally somewhat fox-stained on the verso; else good or better. Item #54894

Folder with reproductions of designs for the Ballets Russes by Léon Bakst, Fedor Fedorovsky, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Pablo Picasso and Josep Maria Sert. This small, excellently printed collection was published no more than two years before the death of Sergei Diaghilev and thus also before the end of the Paris Ballets Russes, which he founded in 1929. Diaghilev first appeared in public in Paris with his ensemble in 1909. The premieres with music by Stravinsky and Debussy became major events of the Parisian avant-garde. The Wagnerian term “Gesamtkunstwerk” (total work of art) took on a new, revolutionary meaning, not least due to the stage sets and costumes designed by the most renowned avant-garde artists of the time. When Vaslav Nijinsky danced the “Afternoon of a Faun” in 1912, it caused a scandal. Bakst and Goncharova produced designs for the stage. Georges Braque and Picasso also designed costumes. For “Parade”, Picasso was responsible for the set, Jean Cocteau wrote the libretto, and Erik Satie composed the music, which for the first time (in 1917) was interspersed with street noises, the clatter of typewriters and the crack of a pistol.

As of January 2025, OCLC locates no copies in North America and only three copies worldwide.