Painting costume design for Nutcracker Toyseller ballet. Watercolor / gouache. 1998. Jose Varona Artist signed and personally dedicated to Beverly Sills, the famous opera singer.
Provenance: Estate of the late Beverly Sills.
Measurements:
13 X 15 1/2 inches including the frame. 11 3/4 X 14 1/4 inches excluding the frame.
Description:
Costume design for the Toy-seller in the Nutcracker Ballet. Comes from the estate of the late Beverly Sills, famous opera singer and society beneficiary.
Painted in watercolour/gouache.
Fabulous imagination depicting a wildly clad, red-haired toy-seller in classic poor street seller's patched coat, checkered trousers, red-heeled shoes. He holds out a plate with coins in one hand, another raises his top hat, from which a nasty looking pirate glares. On his back is a large basket full of toys of every description and at his side is a barrow with swan handles and duck headed bars, gilded wheels, lion masks, dog heads and a group of Empire clad soldiers and their ladies waltzing away. Fabulous imagination and depiction in fine detail. Beautifully executed. Illustrative and poignant.
The painting is framed in a simple gold frame, protected under glass.
Signature and Dedication:
pencil signed, named and dated, lower left: Jose Varona "The Toy Seller" - The Nutcracker - San Francisco Ballet 1986.
Lower right the artist dedicated this work to the late Beverly Sills: To Beverly, with love, for the music and the magic, in remembrance Jose Oct. 98.
Condition:
good.
