Details
OLIVER MESSEL'S DESIGN FOR C.B.COCHRAN'S PLAY TOUGH AT THE TOP:
Oliver Hilary Sambourne Messel (1904-1978)
A costume design for 'The Princess for the Boxing Scene' for C.B.Cochran's musical play 'Tough at the Top', 1949
signed 'Oliver Messel.' (lower right), inscribed 'The Princess for the Boxing Scene' (upper right)
pencil, watercolour and bodycolour, heightened with white on grey paper
26 x 1934 in. (66 x 50 cm.) framed
Executed circa 1949.
Provenance
Thre artist, and by descent to Lord Snowdon.
Special notice
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Lot Essay

Messel designed various Edwardian and costumes and related settings for the musical play Tough at the Top, C.B.Cochran's 127th production. Playing for four months at the Adelphi Theatre in 1949, the story of star-crossed lovers was met with success, the librettist A. P. Herbert writing in The Times, 16 July 1949 that Messel's ornate sets were 'quickened by costumes which constantly fling new and unexpected patterns across the stage'.

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