Paris, unpublished, ca. 1930.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 of samurai-like swordmen. 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 item.