Tomorrows sale at Sotheby’s, "Passion for Fashion", includes items that once belonged to Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. There appears to be just one lot that belonged to Fonteyn: a sequinned cocktail dress with a high estimate. There are several lots relating to Nureyev including costumes, shoes, personal documents and photographs. Many of the items belonged to Joan Thring who was for many years Nureyev's personal assistant.<P>The sale is at 10am tomorrow and includes a great deal of jewellery and a large number of pink evening gowns once owned by Barbara Cartland.<P><B>Stuart adds</B>: Now that the sale is over the original link no longer works. However you can still access the details + the prices by going to <A HREF="http://search.sothebys.com/search/quickSearch/k2/Search.jsp?coll=liveClosed" TARGET=_blank><B>this page</B></A> and putting - fonteyn, nureyev - into the key words box.<P><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited December 20, 2001).]

Naturally, a thread about these two dance icons attracted my notice....<P>The url comes up - after a while. At first it is at 100% load, but still remains blank. Then just as I was about to give up, it all materialized.<P>It's interesting that Nureyev's ballet slippers are called, in the description, 'pumps' - from the picture it is hard to tell, but they look like slippers to me.<P>I thought 'pumps' were shoes with high heels.

"pumps" - decidedly shoes that girls wear and normally without heels, Basheva.

I've just taken a look at Sothebys results pages to see how much the Margot and Rudolf items fetched.<P>The Nureyev shoes went for £3,840 for the white pair & £4,080 for the black pair. His Swan Lake costumes sold for £5,520 & £12,000. Fonteyn's Spectre de la Rose costume went for £1,320.<P>Unfortunately Sotherby's give no clues to the buyers. Does anyone know whether these items have been bought for the Theatre Museum or the Covent Garden archives or whether they were bought by private collectors?

I know someone who found a pair of Nureyev's slippers in a trash can. He had thrown them out after a rehearsal.<P>

Did he/she keep them or sell them? I'd have kept them!<P>I see the very nude photo of Nureyev went for £9,600.

This was back in the late 1960's when the Royal Ballet was in San Diego. Since that time I have lost track of that dancer-friend who found Nureyev's shoes. From what I can remember of him, he would have kept them. <P>I remember him bringing the shoes into class, and he was in such awe.....I can't imagine he would ever throw them out.<P>I have a pair of a Royal Ballet dancer's pointe shoes - her name is on inked on the bottom of the sole.

Who?<P>I 'encountered' Fonteyn on more than one occasion. As President of the RAD she was occasionally present at annual functions for teachers. She was quite minute, utterly enchanting, and had lovely sparkly eyes, and was happy to be photographed with all and sundry.<P>My second encounter was while doing class in London. She walked in with prospective buyers of the RAD building (then in Knightsbridge), and we all had to curtsey to her and them. We were in awe.<P>The first time I ever saw her was at a large theatre in London in the early 60's. We had done an exhibition of RAD work, and she was guest of honour. So I can say I shared a stage with her (at age 8!).<P>The only tangible memento I have is her hand-signed signature on my teaching Diploma (LRAD), of which I'm still rather proud.

Written in ink on the bottom of the shoe is the name "Eyre". I don't have the shoe in front of me, it is buried in a trunk in the garage...it was the late 1960's.<P>I have a signed letter from Fonteyn. I had written to tell her how much I enjoyed her performance here. She also showed up to help dedicate the newly refurbished ballet studios of San Diego Ballet, that was in the 1970's. So that was quite a thrill, too.<P>Jillana (NYCB Principal Dancer - 20 yrs., retired and a member of this board) wrote in an earlier thread that she was in London and wanted to see a Fonteyn performance and stood in line for tickets, only to find out that the tickets were sold out. She was very disappointed, of course, when a lovely lady came up and handed her four tickets. It was only when she went to the performance did she realize that the benefactor was Fonteyn, herself. <P>I wish I could remember what thread that was in so you could read the story in more accurate detail than I am relating it.<P>Red Shoes that diploma is a treasure - you are right to treasure it.

Rosalind Eyre

A story about Fonteyn that we missed when it first came out:<P><B>Panama honours British ballet legend</B> <BR>By Robin Emmott for Reuters<P><BR>PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - It's not often a taxi driver speaks gushingly about a ballet dancer, and less often still that a Latin American taxi driver should do so about a British one.<P>But the late Dame Margot Fonteyn, considered one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th Century, continues to be cherished by many Panamanians who are honouring her as Panama's most famous adopted daughter,<P>"She was a truly incredible woman who gave so much to Panama," says Virgilio, a 61-year-old taxi driver. "She was something of a national heroine. People are starting to forget that now."<P><A HREF="http://www.tiscali.co.uk/cgi-bin/news/newswire.cgi/news/reuters/2002/02/28/entertainment/panamahonoursbritishballetlegend.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><BR><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited March 24, 2002).]

I thought it was really interesting that the Nureyev items went for a lot more than the Fonteyn items. Does anyone know why this would be? <P>Are Nureyev memorabilia more difficult to find, or is it a matter of popularity?<P>Why, for instance, did N's doublet go for a lot more than F's tutu? <P>I thought the Fonteyn items went for very little: indeed less than the estimates in a lot of cases. Wonderful for those who bought them, but quite sad if it is an indication of a loss of interest in this marvellous dancer.

Remember that you only two devotees to drive prices through the roof at an auction, MariaR.<P>But it is an interesting point that I hadn't picked up.

I think it is probably because Nureyev had a great many fans who were not particularly interested in ballet, but just thought he was a gorgeous looking man, a bit like a pop star or film star. Fonteyn's fans were fans because of her dancing, so they were possibly fewer, and maybe not so rich! and of course a lot of the good Fonteyn items had been auctioned long before this.

Without knowing who actually bought the items and why, it is difficult to know the real reason why a Nureyev costume would fetch a higher price than one of Fonteyn's.<P>Although I wasn't able to attend the Sotheby's Passion for Fashion sale, I did go to both the Fonteyn sale at Christies South Kensington a couple of years ago and to two sessions out of four of the Nureyev sale that Christies held in either '94 or '95.<P>The Christies Nureyev sale was enormous and the London sales were only of half his estate as a sale of similar proportions was also held in New York. What I saw being sold in London was the contents of his flat in Paris. Nureyev was a huge collector of just about everything and a hoarder too. It seems he rarely threw away such things as his shoes for example as one pair went for £12,000. In case you are wondering, yes, I did try to bid for some of the items but the bidding went beyond my means unfortunately.<P>There is a now a large collection of Nureyev memorabilia held in Paris, much of which I saw on display at the Musee Carnavalet when they held a Nureyev exhibition a few years ago. This included some of his art collection together with costumes, photos and more personal items.<P>At the more recent Fonteyn sale, I remember reading that the sale raised far more money than the original estimates, in fact there was so much interest in the sale that Christies actually ran out of the beautifully illustrated catalogue they had produced which included photos of Fonteyn that I don't think had been published before. At that sale one of the tutus (I think it was Black Swan) went for over £70,000.<P>With hindsight, the reason Fonteyn's costumes did not sell very well at Passion for Fashion, may have been down to the fact that the ballet items were hardly mentioned in the press. It was the Barbara Cartland clothes that were creating all the interest. I only discovered the ballet element when a Russian-speaking friend found it mentioned in a Russian language paper. So maybe that solves the problem. Could Nureyev's costumes have been bought by a wealthy New Russian?<BR>