21 May 2016 Photography Auctions

21 May 2016

Artist Index / Full Catalogue


A Collection of Photographs of the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet Dancers

81. PETRUSOV, GEORGY (1903-1971)

A Collection of Photographs of the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet Dancers, five works, two signed and each titled in Cyrillic on the reverse.

Each gelatin silver print, three measuring approximately 8.5 by 12 cm, one 11 by 7.5 cm and the other 7.5 by 11.5 cm.
1,200-1,800 GBP


The photographs in the present lot captured Olga Lepeshinskaya and Alexander Rudenko in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Marina Semionova and Mikhail Gabovich in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, a scene from Minkus’s Don Quixote and two scenes with Liudmila Cherkasova in Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty.

Photographed and printed c. 1940s–1950s.

Provenance: Private collection, Europe.

Georgy Petrusov (1903–1971) was a prominent figure of the Soviet photography scene in the 1920s–1930s. He worked as a photo correspondent since 1924 for such periodicals as Trud and Pravda and with Soyuzfoto agency. From 1930 to 1941 he was an in-house photographer for the periodical SSSR na stroike. During World War II Petrusov took photographs for Sovinformbiuro and Izvestia.

Photographs of the Bolshoi Ballet were taken by the artist in the 1940s–1950s, as a part of his work on the album dedicated to 175th anniversary of the Bolshoi Theatre. In thousands of shots, Petrusov managed to record the whole repertoire of the Bolshoi, with some of the historic performances such as Red Poppy, Mirandolina and The Bronze Horseman documented mainly by him.

A Collection of Photographs of the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet Dancers
A Collection of Photographs of the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet Dancers
A Collection of Photographs of the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet Dancers

Notes on symbols:
* Indicates 5% Import Duty Charge applies.
Ω Indicates 20% Import Duty Charge applies.
§ Indicates Artist's Resale Right applies.
† Indicates Standard VAT scheme applies, and the rate of 20% VAT will be charged on both hammer price and premium.