I know only this photograph by George Platt Lynes of Cecil Beaton’s set for Frederick Ashton’s ballet Picnic at Tintagel. Ashton’s story of the doomed love affair of Tristram and Isuelt begins circa 1916 and then devolves into the mythological time when Tristan falls in love with Iseult on her way to Cornwall, where she was to marry King Marc. Ironically, Ashton rejected Arnold Bax’s tone poem Tintagel in favor of The Garden at Fand.
The roast chicken, bread, and wine set out on the picnic cloth are details cobbled by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mount Royal: A Novel. London: John and Robert Maxwell, 1882.
Featured Image: George Platt Lynes. Picnic at Tintagel (1952), gelatin silver print. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University. The New York City Ballet premiered the ballet on February 28, 1952.
See George Balanchine. Complete Stories of Great Ballets (1954). Revised and enlarged by Francis Mason. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1977)