File:Ballerina Yolanda Lacca, by Konstantin Alexeevich Korovin.jpg

• oil on canvas
• 76 x 50 cm
• inscribed t.l.: Paris 1935
• signed b.l.: Constan Korovin

Provenance

The collection of Fabio Calenda and Tessa Rosenfeld, the daughter of the sitter

The offered lot, Portrait of Yolanda Lacca, is a sensitive portrayal of a young ballerina and a notable work from the artist's late Parisian period. Korovin was friends with Yolanda's father, Cesare, a prominent art director of French films and the commission undoubtedly arose from this friendship.

Just two years after sitting for this portrait, Yolanda Lacca was declared by Serge Lifar as 'l'enfant prodige', and invited to dance with him in the Pushkin Festival at Salle Pleyel. Notably, at the Ballet de la Jeunesse, Yolanda had been taught by the famous ballerinas Liubov Egorova and Mathilde Kschessinska. Lacca was soon discovered by Leonid Massine who persuaded her father to allow her to join the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo where Massine worked with George Balanchine as choreographer. Lacca first danced professionally in Monte Carlo at the age of 14 and made her solo debut with the Butterfly role in Fokine's Trial of Love. She appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 1938, and would tour with the Ballets Russes in the United States, England, Italy and South America. Her final performance in America took place with the Ballets Russes in 1945 as a guest artist at the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Significantly, Yolanda corresponded frequently with Madame Kschessinska throughout her life and the letters serve as a fascinating record of the period.