Costume design for the ballet "Cleopatra"

Beginning in 1909, Bakst worked mainly as a set and costume designer, creating elaborate stage designs and flowing costumes for the dancers. He quickly became well-known for the productions of Sergei Diaghilev, with whom he co-founded the Ballet Russes, a ballet production group. With Diaghilev, he produced elaborate costumes and designs for Cleopatra, Scheherazade, Carnaval, Narcisse, La Spectre de la Rose, and Daphnis et Chloe. Although he was Russian-born, due to his Jewish religion he could not obtain a residency card to live in St Petersburg. He was thus forced to live in the “pale of settlement,” in France, and completed all of these ballet productions between the years of 1909 and 1912. He continued to design for the stage until shortly before his death in 1924.