Headdress, ballet headdress

This beautiful gilt diadem adorned with diamantes, red stones and pearls was worn by Anna Pavlova for the part of Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty. This shorted version of The Sleeping Beauty was performed as part of Charles Dillingham’s ‘The Big Show’ at the New York Hippodrome in 1916. Pavlova and her company performed alongside a great variety of acts including the Mammoth Minstrel Show, with a cast of 400, Power’s performing elephants and an ice ballet. ‘The Big Show’ official opened on the 31st of August 1916.

Léon Bakst designed the ballet sending the drawing piecemeal to New York from Europe. Bakst would later go on to design a full length version of this ballet, renamed The Sleeping Princess, for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1921. Several costumes from the 1921 production are housed in the Museum of London’s collection.

This headdress was worn in Act One of the ballet where Pavlova appeared in an all-gold costume. A contact sheet of photographs taken at the White Studio in New York clearly shows this headdress.