Costume design for Amusements on the Water and in a Field

From The Director's Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde by Dassia N. Posner

  • This pencil sketch features several figures in turbans and robes, center, framed by commedia dell'arte characters that include Pantalone (left) and Harlequin (right). The drawing is signed "Sir Gay," one of several pseudonyms with which Eisenstein experimented.

    Amusements on the Water and in a Field was performed in Saint Petersburg by Italian players in 1734. The comedy was published in Vladimir N. Peretts, Italianskiia komedii i intermedii predstavlennyia pri dvorie imperatritsy Anny Ioannovny v 1733–1735 (Petrograd: Imperatorskaia Akademiia Nauk, 1917), 311-318. Other works from Peretts's collection with which Eisenstein experimented include The Honest Courtesan and Four Harlequins.

    See book: p. 142, 143; figure 32

Creator(s)
Creator Role
Subjects
  • Performing Arts
Date
  • c. 1917–18
Related Section
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Content Type
Language
Citable Link
  • Sergei Eisenstein, costume design for Amusements on the Water and in a Field (c. 1917–18). “Harlequin’s entrance.” Signed “Sir Gay.” Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 1923, op. 1, ed. khr. 698: 31

Translation

  • Amusements on the Water and in a Field. Harlequin’s entrance. D. I.