Indeed, her costume study Spanish Dancer belongs to a series of sketches produced by the artist during her time in Spain, intended for two ballets on Iberian themes [...]

Natalia Goncharova went to Spain in 1916 to join Sergej Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, with which she had been working for several years. It was there that she encountered a culture and tradition that left indelible marks on her work as an artist, often influencing the subject matter of her later paintings. Active in a variety of figurative fields, primarily as a painter, set designer and illustrator, Goncharova was one of the leading names in the Russian avantgarde and Rayism, which she adhered to after a primitive period, inspired by her country’s popular and religious culture. 

The work, which shows a Spanish dancer in a solemn pose, wrapped in the traditional brightly coloured mantón de Manila, forms part of her prolific work associated with the theatre, which she carried out enthusiastically from the mid-1910s onwards. If we overlook an earlier work for the Marriage of Zobeide, produced in Moscow in 1909 for the workshop of Konstantin Krakht, Goncharova’s work in the theatre sector is indissolubly tied to that of the Russian impresario Sergej Diaghilev, who in 1913 commissioned her to design the scenery and costumes for Rimskij-Korsakov’s opera and ballet Le Coq d’or, which was performed in Paris the following year. 

Spanish Dancer dates to a later period of collaboration following the outbreak of World War I, when the ballet company was invited to perform in Spain (a neutral country at the time) in 1916 by King Alfonso XIII, upon its return from touring the United States. After a series of transfers all over Europe, Goncharova and her painter husband Michael Larionov eventually joined Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in July of that year in the city of San Sebastián, remaining in the country until September. 

Here Goncharova had an opportunity to discover the local costumes and folklore, driven by the theatre projects proposed by the Russian impresario, who was also attracted by the local culture. Indeed, her costume study Spanish Dancer belongs to a series of sketches produced by the artist during her time in Spain, intended for two ballets on Iberian themes, which were never actually performed: Triana, to music by Isaac Albéniz, and España, based on the Rapsodie Espagnole by Maurice Ravel. 

Over and beyond this missed opportunity, which did not affect her subsequent prolific relationship with Diaghilev, Goncharova’s fascination with Spanish costumes had a profound effect on her painting, which was by now also influenced by the Cubist and Futurist avant-garde movements. The Espagnoles motif was explored in an extensive group of works, which continued until at least the early 1930s. 

Spanish Dancer entered the collection of Francesco Federico Cerruti after 1993,¹ purchased - as documented by Annalisa Ferrari - from the English merchant and collector Julian Barran, an expert on Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. 

Alessandro Botta

¹ Indeed, it does not appear in the handwritten “Inventario dei mobili, dipinti, sculture, argenti, tappeti, maioliche, porcellane e oggetti d’arte che si trovano nella villa di Rivoli alla data del 30-06-1993” (Cerruti Collection Archives).