{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O123621"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O123621/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006BH6991/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006BH6991/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006BH6991","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O123621/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O123621","accessionNumber":"S.8-2006","objectType":"Costume design","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"<i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>, designed for the Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet in 1946, is Messel's most enduring production. The fairy costumes and fantasy elements are set in a 'real' world, inspired by the soaring architectural fantasies of the 17th and 18th centuries and costumes based upon mid-late 17th-century fashions, mixing English, Spanish and French period styles.\r\n\r\nThis design is for the Third Prince in Act I of the ballet. He is one of the four suitors for the hand of Princess Aurora who each give her a rose during a formal ballet courtship dance - hence the popular title, the Rose Adagio. The four Princes are often portrayed as from the four points of the compass or representing different lands, but in this production, though identifiable from their costumes, they were simply programmed as First Prince, Second Prince, Third Prince and Fourth Prince. An inscription shows that Messel conceived this costume as Prince of the Western Isles - his way of distinguishing between the four. The costume uses Messel's favourite deep, earthy colour range - grey greens, deep reddish pinks highlighted with gold.  \r\n\r\nOliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well as working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.","physicalDescription":"Costume design for the Third Prince in the ballet <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>. He wears a full-bottomed wig and holds a pink rose in his right hand and, in his left, a black hat with plumes in shades of deep reddish pink and pink mauve. He has a long-sleeved short 'bolero' jacket in dark grey green, the sleeves banded with gold trimmed with gold balls and finished in ribbon loops in shades of deep reddish pink; the bolero is edged around the body with gold fringe. The full shirt appears at the wrists and below the jacket at the waist. The knee-length breeches are vertically striped gold and dark grey green, with ribbon loops in shades of deep reddish pink ribbon loops at the waist and at knees. The stockings are white and the white shoes are trimmed with deep reddish pink bows.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Messel, Oliver Hilary Sambourne","id":"A4929"},"association":{"text":"designer","id":"x36960"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"charcoal","id":"AAT12862"},{"text":"paper","id":"x30308"},{"text":"paint","id":"AAT15029"},{"text":"watercolour","id":"x33202"},{"text":"pencil","id":"x30347"},{"text":"gouache","id":"AAT70114"}],"techniques":[{"text":"drawing (image-making)","id":"AAT54196"},{"text":"painting (image-making)","id":"AAT54216"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Charcoal, pencil, gouache, paint, watercolour on paper","categories":[{"text":"Entertainment & Leisure","id":"THES48959"},{"text":"Designs","id":"THES48968"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&P","id":"THES48602"},"images":["2006BH6991"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"005","id":"THES356227"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"costume design","id":"AAT163423"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"designed","id":"x29338"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1945","earliest":"1945-01-01","latest":"1945-12-31"},"association":{"text":"designed","id":"x29338"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Acquired with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Art Fund and the Friends of the V&A","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"50.3","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"38","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'Oliver Messel'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Artist's signature in pencil on the bottom right-hand corner on the front of the sheet"},{"content":"'53'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscription in pencil on the back of the sheet"},{"content":"'Prince Act I / Sk 3 / (in box) 3rd PRINCE / Sk9 (green) / The Prince of the Western Isles.","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"written by artist in pencil"},{"content":"17 x 12 / 26","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"written in red crayon"},{"content":"CUSTOMS 7 EXCISE / (LONDON AIRPORT EXPORT) / 28 SEPT 1949 / [signature illegible]","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Rectangular Customs stamp signed in ball point pen"},{"content":"[crown] / CUSTOMS / AND / EXCISE","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Round Customs stamp"}],"objectHistory":"Oliver Messel designed <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>, Marius Petipa and Tchaikovsky's masterpiece, in 1946 for the Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet, the production with which the company reopened the Royal Opera House after its wartime use as a dance hall.  The production was in the repertory for nearly twenty-five years.  Messel revised the designs several times, with major revisions in 1952 and 1960 and he reworked the designs when the production was mounted in 1959 for the Royal Ballet Touring Company.  \r\nLord Snowdon, Oliver Messel's nephew, inherited Messel's theatre designs and other designs and artefacts.  The designs were briefly stored in a disused chapel in Kensington Palace before being housed at the V&A from 1981 on indefinite loan.  The V&A Theatre Museum purchased the Oliver Messel collection from Lord Snowdon in 2005.\n\nHistorical significance: The production of <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i> was an immediate success and established itself as the Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet's 'signature' work, associated with many key events in the company's history.  These included their first sensational appearance in New York in 1949 (which established the company's international reputation in America) and Russia in 1961, when they took the ballet, performed by a British company barely thirty years old, back to the place of its birth in St Petersburg.  Messel's designs were a significant part of the ballet's success.  Sarah Woodcock said of this production  “<i>The Sleeping Beauty</i> was to be Messel’s biggest and most enduring production … The production was performed nearly one thousand one hundred and fifty times, from London to Los Angeles, from Leeds to Leningrad, becoming the Company’s ‘signature ballet’.”  (Pinkham, ed., 1983).","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Costume design by Oliver Messel for the Third Prince in Act II of Marius Petipa's ballet <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>, Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet, 1946.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Pinkham, Roger (ed.) <i>Oliver Messel: an exhibition held at the Theatre Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, 22 June - 30 September 1983.</i> \r\nLondon: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983.  200p., ill\r\nISBN 0905209508)"}],"production":"The notation on the reverse of the original backboard confirms that this design dates from 1946.\n\nReason For Production: Commission","productionType":{"text":"Design","id":"THES48872"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":["<i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>"],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["S.8-2006"],"accessionNumberNum":"8","accessionNumberPrefix":"S","accessionYear":2006,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"TM Rotation Number","id":"THES50368"},"number":"ROT 3317"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-05-08","recordCreationDate":"2006-05-03","availableToBook":true}}