3-078-989 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

At the Circus, 1899. Depicted here is a scene from the ballet Papa Chrysantheme performed in 1892 at the Nouveau Cirque in Paris, an establishment renowned for its modern fixtures such as electrical lighting and mechanically operated scenery. For this ballet the central area of the Nouveau Cirque was flooded to produce a lake filled with artificial lotus leaves. The figures in the foreground are dancers dressed in Japanese costumes.