{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O123627"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O123627/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006BH6918/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006BH6918/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006BH6918","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O123627/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O123627","accessionNumber":"S.10-2006","objectType":"Costume design","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Oliver Messel designed <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i> for the Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet in 1946. It was a very important production as it was to open the Royal Opera House after its wartime use as a dance hall. It became Messel's most enduring production in Great Britain and the 'signature' production of the company, associated with many important nights in their history - not just the Opera House reopening, but their fabulous success in New York in 1949 and their first appearance in Russia in 1961. Messel designed over one thousand costumes for the many revivals of this production. The fairy costumes and fantasy elements he anchored 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\nAct III of <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i> is given over to the wedding celebrations of Princess Aurora and Prince Florimund. In classical ballet, the final act often had only tenuous links with the narrative and was an excuse for showpiece solos or group dances. Several fairy-tale characters are guests at the wedding, including this handsome Puss in Boots, who dances a pas de deux with a pretty White Cat, full of delicate cat-like movements. Puss-in-Boots is dressed in a tightly fitting dark blue coat and contrasting orange trousers, tucked into his boots.\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 Puss-in-Boots in the ballet <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>. He is depicted as a man with a cat's head and paws, wearing a tightly fitting 18th-century blue coat, open to show the puffed white collar of his shirt,  elaborately decorated purple and orange breeches and wide, calf-length white boots. He holds a plumed hat in his left hand.","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":["2006BH6918"],"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":"37.7","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"25.1","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":"'1'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Pencil inscription on the front of the sheet."}],"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 Puss-in-Boots in Marius Petipa's ballet <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>, Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet, 1946 or later revision.","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 design might be for a later revised production.\n\nReason For Production: Commission","productionType":{"text":"Design","id":"THES48872"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["S.10-2006"],"accessionNumberNum":"10","accessionNumberPrefix":"S","accessionYear":2006,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"TM Rotation Number","id":"THES50368"},"number":"ROT 3342"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-03-31","recordCreationDate":"2006-05-03","availableToBook":true}}