Natalia Goncharova’s Peasant Woman: setting the scene

The Russian artist’s costume design for the ballet/opera Le Coq d’Or reflects the vibrant use of colour from her earlier paintingsThis 1937 illustration gives a taste of the vivid colours and striking forms, inspired by traditional Russian culture, with which Natalia Goncharova made her name as a costume and set designer. Her break-out hit was the Ballets Russes’s Le Coq D’Or in 1914. Dancers in appliqued cotton or velvet were complemented by her city backdrop, a modernis