Description of the artwork

Created in late 1924 in preparation for the 1925 American revue, this dazzling series of designs illustrates Erté’s fascination with Asian exoticism, reinterpreted through the lens of Art Deco geometry.
Designed for the famous George White’s Scandals in New York—a prestigious Broadway production that rivaled the Ziegfeld Follies—these costumes served as a living backdrop for a spectacular choreographed tableau. Inspired by the Chinese board game that Western high society became wildly enamored with during the Roaring Twenties, the show featured a procession of dancers, each embodying the game’s strategic symbols—from Dragons to Flowers to the Winds.

In this scene, Erté showcases his full mastery as a miniaturist by directly incorporating stylized Chinese iconography with an Art Deco twist. The designs feature embroidered dragons, geometric screens, monumental architectural headdresses, and wide sleeves structured like playing tiles. Created in gouache with meticulous highlights of gold paint applied with a feather, these sketches transcend their strictly scenic function to stand out as icons of fashion illustration of the era.
A testament to the artist’s peak of popularity in the United States—he signed his Hollywood contract with MGM that same year—several original designs from this major historical series are now carefully preserved in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York.