1. Design for the theatre program for Boris Godunov. Original pencil and watercolor on paper, 248 x 316, signed and dated 1908 at lower right, framed.
2. Original drawing of a tree in a snow. Ink with gold highlights on card, 220 x 173 mm.
Provenance: collection of Emil Cooper [1877-1960], a renowned Russian-born conductor and friend of Feodor Chaliapin; thence by descent.

Ivan Fedotov, a talented Russian theater designer and artist, graduated from the Stroganov Art School in Moscow and joined the well known theater production company founded by Sergei Zimin in 1903, working alongside Nikolai Roerich, Ivan Bilibin, Sergei Sudeikin, and Vasilii Polenov.
1908 was the year of a famous revised staging of Modest Mussorgsky's masterpiece Boris Godunov by Sergei Diagilev at the Paris Opéra with Feodor Chaliapin in a title role. It is most likely that Emil Cooper, a Russian-born conductor who conducted the 1908 staging of the opera in Paris received this work from his friend Chaliapin after the premiere.