{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1482759"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1482759/"}},"images":null,"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1482759","accessionNumber":"S.430-2018","objectType":"Costume design","titles":[{"title":"La Fille mal gardee","type":"generic title"},{"title":"The Wayward Daughter","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"Costume design by Osbert Lancaster for <i>La Fille mal gardée</i> by Frederick Ashton created for The Royal Ballet and first performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden on 28 January 1960. Lancaster designed the sets, front cloth and costumes.  \n\nTraditionally there was a scene in Act 1 Scene 1 with a mechanical hen fussing over her brood of chickens. Ashton transformed this scene by using dancers as a cockerel and four hens awaking at dawn. The treatment of these birds was partly inspired by Walter Felsenstein’s production of Leos Janacek’s opera <i>The Cunning Little Vixen</i><i>.</i>\r\n\nAshton was inspired to create the ballet as a result of his passion for the Suffolk countryside and he was encouragement to create his new version by former ballerina, Tamara Karsavina, who had danced the role of Lise with the Imperial Russian Ballet. Karsavina taught Ashton some of the mime she had performed. Ashton worked closely with scholar Ivor Guest who unearthed various version of the score and identified the original engraving by Choffart from P.A. Baudouin’s Une Jeune fille querellée par sa mère (1764) which inspire the original version of the ballet by Jean Dauberval in 1989. John Lanchbery freely adapted the score by Ferdinand Hérold from 1828 incorporating a range of other material that had found its way into the ballet during the nineteenth century. Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée has become one of the most popular ballets of the twentieth century and continues to be danced throughout the world.\r\n\nAt the age of 11 Osbert Lancaster was taken by his mother to see <i>The Sleeping Princess</i> and its impact made him want to design for the stage. While at Oxford he performed with OUDS and provided caricatures of other performers for Isis. At the Slade School of Art he attended Vladimir Polunin’s course on stage design but it was not until 1951 he had his first opportunity to design for theatre when John Cranko invited him to design his Festival of Britain ballet <i>Pineapple Poll</i>.  Thereafter he designed for Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, the Old Vic and London Festival Ballet. As a designer his cartoonist’s ability slightly exaggerate detail while revealing an understanding of period brought him success. \r\n\r\nDiscussing his designs Lancaster noted that ‘the first question to be settled was that of period’ and he and Ashton agreed that the traditions of the ballet led it to be ‘far closer in spirit to the sentimental Biedermeyer romanticism of the [French] Restoration period, than to the aristocratic dairymaid tradition of le petit Trianon’. He aimed to present ‘the freshness and naïveté of Images d’Epinal, while at the same time drawing inspiration from the best of the French children’s-book illustrators flourishing at the turn of the century, notably than now-neglected artist, Boutet de Monvel.’ (Lancaster in Ivor Guest La Fille mal gardée  London 1960 pp.23-24).\r\n\r\nThe original costumes were made by the Production Wardrobe at the Royal Opera House with the costumes for the Cockerel and hens being made by Alick Shanks.\r\n\r\nThese designs appear also to have been used for staging by the Royal Danish Ballet under the title <i>Den Slet Bevogdtede Datter</i> in Copenhagen.\r\n\r\nThe V&A Theatre and Performance department hold further material on <i>La Fille mal gardée</i> in Ivor Guest’s Research Papers, the core collection and Nadia Nerina’s archive.  A version of the Cockerel costume is also held in the Theatre &amp; Performance collection: museum no. S.651-1981.\r\n","physicalDescription":"Annotated working design drawings by Osbert Lancaster (1908-1986) for the Cockerel and Hens in Frederick Ashton's ballet <i>La Fille mal gardée</i>.  The sketches include a bird without a ‘head’, separate head, and the body within the costume to show positioning.  A further sketch in blue ink is on the reverse.  ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Lancaster, Osbert (Sir)","id":"A13684"},"association":{"text":"designers","id":"AAT25190"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"pencil","id":"x30347"},{"text":"ink","id":"AAT15012"},{"text":"paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[{"text":"designing","id":"THES268626"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Pencil and ink on paper","categories":[{"text":"Entertainment & Leisure","id":"THES48959"},{"text":"Designs","id":"THES48968"},{"text":"Theatre","id":"THES250537"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&P","id":"THES48602"},"images":[],"imageResolution":"none","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"008","id":"THES356599"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"costume design","id":"AAT163423"}],[{"text":"drawings","id":"AAT33973"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"drawn","id":"x30545"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1960","earliest":"1960-01-01","latest":"1960-12-31"},"association":{"text":"drawn","id":"x30545"},"note":"probably"}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by the estate of David Dean","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"28.8","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"01/10/2018","earliest":"2018-10-01","latest":"2018-10-01"},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"39.3","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"01/10/2018","earliest":"2018-10-01","latest":"2018-10-01"},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'8'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed and circled in black ink, upper centre of paper. "},{"content":"'Satin Hood ¾ / Body v'tean [Jowl] 1 yrd / [Back] ¾ yd / Tail ½ yd / wings. 2yds Satin / 12 yrds satin'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed in pencil along the left side of the main cockerel sketch.  Some words written unclearly.  The first three lines have a brace bracket to the right with a further annotation, written unclearly: '2'2 Bird'."},{"content":"'19 [rouond] / 11 Deep'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed in pencil to the right of the upper cockerel sketch, with a line connecting to the hock joint of the thigh."},{"content":"'<u>14[4]5</u> / 70 / <u>14</u>'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed upside down in pencil in the upper right corner.  Possibly a sum."},{"content":"'[chicks] Girls / <strike>H</strike>Cock Boy. / Wednesday / Fitting/ [First] / 18th / <u>Jan</u>.'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed in blue ink along the right side of the sketch on the lower right.  Some words writtten unclearly."},{"content":"'2½ v'tean Body. - 10 yds. len 1½=8½ / 1½ satin wings / ¾ \" Head } 9 lens 2 = <u>7yds</u>'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed in pencil in the lower right corner next to an outline sketch in blue ink of a hen."},{"content":"'Cockerel & Chickens'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Inscribed in pencil on reverse, accompanied by a further sketch in bue ink of a chicken and lots of random black ink marks across the paper."}],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Working drawings for the Cockerel and Hens in <i>La Fille mal gardée</i> at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1960","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["S.430-2018"],"accessionNumberNum":"430","accessionNumberPrefix":"S","accessionYear":2018,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-05-11","recordCreationDate":"2019-03-08","availableToBook":true}}