Decor for the Ballet "Liturgie"

Inscription: Signed (lower right): N.Gontcharova

Mrs. S. Bashkiroff, New York (in 1934); Mrs. Irene A. Bashkiroff, Connecticut (in 1946); Boris A. Bakhmeteff, New York (until d. 1951); Humanities Fund, Inc., New York (1951–72; gift to MMA)

New York. Kingore Gallery. "The Goncharova-Larionov Exhibition," 1922, no. 49 (as "Stage Scene, 'La Liturgie'").

Museum of Modern Art, New York. "International Exhibition of Theatre Art," January 16–February 26, 1934, no. 297a (as "Liturgy, drawing for setting," lent by Mrs. S. Bashkiroff, New York).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Painters in Paris: 1895–1950," March 8–December 31, 2000, extended to January 14, 2001, unnumbered cat. (p. 35).

W. A. Propert. The Russian Ballet in Western Europe, 1909–1920. New York, 1921, pp. 40–41, ill. n. p. (detail), notes that "Liturgy" began rehearsals in Lausanne in 1915 but was not produced.

Christian Brinton. The Goncharova-Larionov Exhibition. Exh. cat., Kingore Gallery. New York, 1922, unpaginated, no. 49.

Florence Gilliam. "Natalie Gontcharova and the New Art Decoratif." Arts 5 (January 1924), p. 30, ill. p. 28.

Tamara Talbot Rice. "The Evolution of the Russian Ballet." Apollo 19 (March 1934), ill. p. 154 (detail).

George Amberg. Art in Modern Ballet. New York, 1946, pp. 9, 73, pl. 4, lists it in the collection of Mrs. Irene A. Bashkiroff.

Mary Chamot. Goncharova: Stage Designs and Paintings. London, 1979, p. 16, notes that Goncharova studied Russian icons and Byzantine mosaics while working on the "Liturgy" designs; states that the ballet was never realized because the production costs were too high.

Robert C. Hansen. Scenic and Costume Design for the Ballets Russes. PhD diss., University of Minnesota. Ann Arbor, 1985, p. 51.

John E. Bowlt. "Orthodoxy and the Avant-Garde: Sacred Images in the Work of Goncharova, Malevich, and Their Contemporaries." Christianity and the Arts in Russia. Ed. William C. Brumfield and Milos M. Velimirovic. Cambridge, 1991, p. 149, quotes Ivan Bunin's statement that Goncharova incorrectly positioned Christ and the Virgin in this iconostasis design.

Jane Ashton Sharp. Russian Modernism between East and West: Natal'ia Goncharova and the Moscow Avant-Garde. New York, 2006, pp. 245–46, fig. 154.

Anthony Parton. Goncharova: The Art and Design of Natalia Goncharova. Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2010, pp. 263–64, 337–40, notes that this setting, resembling an iconostasis, was designed as the backdrop for a scene of the Annunciation.

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