Mattia Jona, Master Drawings and Prints, Japanese Prints - Piazzetta Guastalla 5, 20122 Milan, Italy, tel (+39) 02 8053315

ROMAIN DE TIRTOFF, called ERTE' ( St. Petersburg 1892 - Paris 1990) DANSEUSE DE VALSE - N 2765
Original gouache, signed by Erté, 1935, 370 x 270 mm. Inscribed in pencil 'O Konor' by another hand.
On the verso Erté's autograph inscription, in pen, ' N 2765 / Danseuse de Valse', Erté's stamp 'ERTE' ROMAIN DE TIRTOFF ' and two pen inscriptions 'D. Cse 2 n° 5' and '1806.A'. These last inscriptions can be attributed to Max Weldy, who has been one of the most important costume designers of the 20th century.
Erte's enchanted and mute women are 'talking' through the masterly drapery of his dresses. It's like if this 'danseuse' is waiting for a providential wind breath, a certain musical 'aria', to develop the forms, the lines she is styled with, so starting the dance. Those drapery forms and lines would work out as a choreographic score, to which the portrayed woman is intended (text © by S. Alexander Sanzenbacher).
The gouache is related with the show 'La Folie d'Amour', Folies Bergère, Paris, September 1935. See 'Les Folies Bergeres', J. Pessis e J. Crepineau, ed Fixot, Paris / Rennes 1990; 15 Settembre 1935: 'La Folie d'Amour' Revue internationale en cinquante tableaux de Maurice Hermite, avec la coll. de Gèo Charley. Costumes de Max Weldy d'aprés de maquettes de Erté et de Wittop. Mise en scene de Pierre Larrieu. Choreographie de Fortunato. Décors de Deshays, Bertin, Broussard et Cillard, Lavignac et Pelegry. Danses anglaises reglées par Miss Bluebell.

Romain de Tirtoff, who called himself Erté after the French pronunciation of his initials, was one of the foremost fashion and stage designers of the early twentieth century. Destined by his father for a military career, Erté confounded expectation by creating his first successful costume design at the age of five, and was finally allowed to move to Paris in 1912, in fulfilment of his ambition to become a fashion illustrator. In 1915, he began an association with Harper's Bazaar by designing covers of each of their magazines for the next 22 years. The influence of his work as a result of the high visibility of this periodical influenced an entire art movement that was to become known as "Art Deco". Erté is perhaps best remembered for the gloriously extravagant costumes and stage sets that he designed for the Folies-Bergère in Paris. As well as the music-hall, Erté also designed for the opera and the traditional theatre, and spent a brief period in Hollywood in 1925. After a period of relative obscurity in the 1940s and 1950s, Erté's characteristic style found a new and enthusiastic market in the 1960s. Gouaches by Erté are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris).