Anna Pavlova's London home and garden

Although only a teenager after she graduated from the Imperial Ballet School in St Peters­burg in 1899, Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) must have been a skilful ballet dancer. She was soon offered a number of interesting roles with the Imperial Ballet Company and came to be admired by the ballet-going public of that very cult­ivated city. It was in the role of The Dying Swan, a solo choreographed for her by Michel Fokine in 1905, that people most loved. As was The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns.

Pavlova became a Russian ballerina who was reaching her peak at a time when Russia was producing the best dancers, choreographers, cos­tume designers, art­ists, composers, writers and every other creative profession in the world. But it was a conservative world. In 1906 Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929) organised the Exhibition of Russian Art at the Pétit Palais in Paris, possibly one of the first major ex­hib­itions of Russian art in western Europe. Its enormous success created a passion in Paris for all things Russian, and encouraged Diaghilev to bring more Russian cultural products to France.

Cleopatra premiered in Paris in June 1909, with the title role played by Ida Rubinstein and the other roles were filled by Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina, Mikhail Fokine and Anna Pavlova. The sets, costumes and choreography were amazing, summoning the lushness which audiences associated with the exotic east. Gold, jewels, triumphant music and glittering processions.

But within one year of her Paris role in Cleopatra, Pavlova left the Ballets Russes. This was because she felt dismayed by Diaghil­ev's crystal clear preference for males. In bed and on stage. So Pav­lova formed her own company in 1910, taking some dancers from the original St Petersburg group. And as she toured the world, particularly in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Prague and Berlin, she found more talented dancers.

From 1909 on, the Ballets Russes company never returned home to Rus­sia. They constantly travelled, but remained firmly based in Paris. Pavlova, on the other hand, remained a member of the Mariinsky Theat­re in St Petersburg until 1913. She visited her mother a few times.

Pavlova’s British debut was in the Palace Theatre in 1910. For this first London season Pavlova stayed at the Hyde Park Hotel, but needing green space of her own, she rented a small house in Golders Green. It was therefore inevitable that after leaving Russia permanently, Pavlova decided to move to London, not Paris. She settled in 1912 at the Ivy House in Golders Green in north London, where she based herself for the rest of her life.


Pav­lova had her furniture and artwork shipped from St Petersburg because her permanent home had to be an elegant retreat from the endless months of railway stations, buses and crowds. Pavlova was the artistic hub of the Pavlova Company, but her house and gardens became her Eden.

The house had an ornamental lake where she fed her pet swans, and since it was Pavlova’s favourite spot, it is where the Scottish art­ist Harry Paulin later created a sculpture of her (in 1954). She also loved her aviary of exotic birds.

Pavlova was certainly not professionally isolated at Ivy House. She converted the large balconied hall into a studio and taught top qual­ity students there. Her influen­ce was probably greatest on the bril­l­iant Alicia Markova (1910-2004) who became the first British-born dancer to be principal dancer of Ballets Russes. As the artistic hub of the Pavlova Company, it was in this house that prospective members were auditioned, rehearsals taken, tours final­ised, costumes made and sets stored in the cellars under the house.

Nor was she isolated socially. She invited just the people she was closest to, to share their company in the lovely gardens. Ital­ian ballet master-pedagogue Enrico Cecchetti 1850–1928, who dev­ised and perfected the Cecchetti method of ballet training, loved the gardens.