Paris, unpublished, ca. 1930. Oblong cardboard (35.8 x 44.7 cm). Gouache, watercolour, and pencil, heightened with silver.

An original design by the great illustrator, set and costume designer, painter and poet, Georges de Pogédaieff (Grigory Anatolyevich Pozhydaev - or Pozhidaev) (1897-1971). Artnet gives the following timeline: 1913, student of A. Arkhipenko and N. Kasatkin in the Moscow Art, Sculpture and Architecture School; 1918, worked as designer in St Petersburg; 1918-1919, joint exhibitions with Goleyzovski in Moscow; 1920, emigrated to Berlin, Germany; 1922, personal exhibition in Berlin; 1924, exhibited in the Neue Gallery in Vienna; 1946, exhibited in Paris Gallery L. Reimann; 1955, exhibited in Paris Gallery Margueritte; 1930-1971, lived and worked in Paris, France (until his death in 1971). De Pogédaieff is best known for his work as a theatre set designer and costume designer, and for being a portrait painter: his portrait of Nathan Altman was sold at auction in 2014 for £37,500. His designs were commissioned by the Bolshoi Theatre, and, after the Russian revolution, leading theatres in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris. The current design shows three costumes, for two sylvan spirits and a dryad, clad in leaves. The signature in the top left corner is Pogédaieff's. This is possibly a design for a ballet production of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Le Coq d'Or [The Golden Cockerel]; circa 1925-27, as noted in a Parke Bernet catalogue. Board a bit toned, but the colouring of the illustrations fresh and vivid. A very good unique item.