The
present work is a character concept sketch by Natacha Rambova for Cecil
B. DeMille's 1921 movie, "Fool's Paradise." The wildly outrageous
design features lit candles on the front and on either side of the
subject's head, intended to create maximum drama and dazzle the viewer's
eyes.
Rambova creatively employed metallic silver and bronze paint to heighten the over-the-top appeal of her costumes.
Rambova,
a muse and one-time wife of Rudolph Valentino, collaborated extensively
with DeMille, creating both costume and set designs for some of his
early silent films.
Unsigned and undramed. Inscribed on verso, C.B. Demille's Fooks Paradise, 1921, Costume Sketch

Natacha Rambova (born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy; January 19, 1897 –
June 5, 1966) was an American film costume designer, set designer, and
occasional actress who was active in Hollywood in the 1920s. In her
later life, she abandoned design to pursue other interests, specifically
Egyptology, a subject on which she became a published scholar in the
1950s.

Rambova was born into a prominent family in Salt Lake City who were
members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was
raised in San Francisco and educated in England before beginning her
career as a dancer, performing under Russian ballet choreographer
Theodore Kosloff in New York City. She relocated to Los Angeles at age
19, where she became an established costume designer for Hollywood film
productions. It was there she became acquainted with actor Rudolph
Valentino, with whom she had a two-year marriage from 1923 to 1925.
Rambova's association with Valentino afforded her a widespread celebrity
typically afforded to actors.[1] Although they shared many interests
such as art, poetry and spiritualism, his colleagues felt that she
exercised too much control over his work and blamed her for several
expensive career flops.

After divorcing Valentino in 1925, Rambova operated her own clothing
store in Manhattan before moving to Europe and marrying the aristocrat
Álvaro de Urzáiz in 1932. It was during this time that she visited Egypt
and developed a fascination with the country that remained for the rest
of her life. Rambova spent her later years studying Egyptology and
earned two Mellon Grants to travel there and study Egyptian symbols and
belief systems. She served as the editor of the first three volumes of
Egyptian Religious Texts and Representations (1954–7) by Alexandre
Piankoff, also contributing a chapter on symbology in the third volume.
She died in 1966 in California of a heart attack while working on a
manuscript examining patterns within the texts in the Pyramid of Unas.

Rambova has been noted by fashion and art historians for her unique
costume designs that drew on and synthesized a variety of influences, as
well as her dedication to historical accuracy in crafting them.
Academics have also cited her interpretive contributions to the field of
Egyptology as significant. In popular culture, Rambova has been
depicted in several films and television series, figuring significantly
in the Valentino biopics The Legend of Valentino (1975), in which she
was portrayed by Yvette Mimieux, and Ken Russell's Valentino (1977) by
Michelle Phillips. She was also featured in a fictionalized narrative in
the network series American Horror Story: Hotel (2015), portrayed by
Alexandra Daddario.