The Robert Bunting dance collection will feature in Skinner's American and European art sale on September 21, consisting of over 150 lots of dance related art, including costume and set designs.
The highlights of the collection include a 1921 Leon Bakst costume design for the Marchioness in Sleeping Beauty and a design for Liturgie attributed to Natalia Goncharova. Both come to auction with $15,000 high estimates.
 Goncharova's design for Liturgie |
Last year a painting by Bakst, The Yellow Sultana, sold for £937,250 ($1.5m) at Christie's in London. Goncharova has similar pedigree - her 1918 painting Danseuses Espagnoles sold for £2.8m ($5.6m) at the same auction house in 2007.
Costume designs for the ballet have sold well in previous auctions. A selection of five designs for the Ballet Russes, the majority bearing stamps by founder Sergei Diaghilev, sold for $18,000 in 2005 - an increase of 1,100% on their $1,500 estimate.
Hermione Chivian-Cobb, private art dealer and certified appraiser, comments: "The Robert Bunting Collection of costume and set designs, posters and photographs for ballet is extremely rich and diversified.
"It ranges from the 17th to the 20th century, and includes works for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the Nijinska Theatre de la Danse, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Royal Ballet and the New York City Ballet, among many others. The designs, made for interpretation by dressmakers and carpenters, are frequently all we have left of evanescent performances."
The rest of the auction will also feature work by other well-known artists, including Camden Mts. from the Graves by Fitz Henry Lane, which carries an estimate of $1.8m.
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