Tamara Karsavina was a famous Russian ballerina who was one of the principal dancers of the Ballets Russes company organized in Paris by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Her career started at the Mariinsky Theater: she made her debut in October 1904 performing in the one-act ballet “The Awakening of Flora” choreographed by Marius Petipa, however, she did not become famous after that. It was the role of the Tsar Maiden in “The Little Humpbacked Horse” that brought her success and made her one of the leading ballerinas of the Mariinsky Theater. She had leading parts in the ballets “Giselle”, “The Sleeping Beauty”, “The Nutcracker”, and “Swan Lake.”

The first one to notice Karsavina’s true potential was the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was seconded by the choreographer Mikhail Fokine. After becoming the principal dancer of the Ballets Russes and performing in several of Fokine’s ballets, Karsavina enjoyed a meteoric rise through the ranks. In total, the ballerina participated in a third of the premieres of the Ballets Russes and often performed together with Vaslav Nijinsky.

Mikhail Fokine commented on Karsavina’s performance in the ballet “La Sylphide” that he had staged,

The Museum of Theater and Music houses a poster for the ballet “Le Spectre de la rose” that demonstrates just how successful Karsavina was. The poster is of an unusually large size and therefore visible from afar. It adorned the theater and the streets of Monte Carlo, where the premiere of the play took place on April 19, 1911.

Curiously enough, Sergei Diaghilev did not commission this poster from Léon Bakst, who designed the sets and stage costumes. Instead, Diaghilev invited Jean Cocteau — a French painter, poet, novelist, and film director. Diaghilev may have decided that the French painter’s minimalistic and graphic style was more appropriate for a poster than Bakst’s splendorous approach.

Jean Cocteau’s poster depicts a black and white female figure in profile against a blue background. The dancer wears pointe shoes and a dress with a tight bodice and a wide skirt. The Art Nouveau posters primarily focused on the visual aspect rather than the names of performance and dancers. This is evident from Jean Cocteau’s poster, where the text serves only as a frame for the stylized image of Tamara Karsavina.