Composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1896 and based on the eponymous bylina, Sadko saw its United States premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 25 January 1930. By then, Sergei Sudeikin was living in America. Having left Russia in 1920, the artist briefly stayed in Paris, where he made a name for himself working as a set and cost.mes designer for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and Nikita Balieff’s La Chauve-Souris. The success of the latter was such that in 1922 the popular cabaret theatre company was invited to tour the United States. In New York, Sudeikin met fellow Russian émigré Morris Gest (1875-1942), a renowned Broadway producer and enthusiast of the artist with whom he would frequently collaborate, as well as Christian Brinton (1870-1942), the critic, collects or and patron responsible for introducing contemporary Russian art to America.

From Broadway theatres Sudeikin was called to the Metropolitan Opera, first in 1925 to design the sets and cost.mes s for Stravinsky’s Petrushka, the following year for The Nightingale and again for Sadko (fig.1). ‘Scenically, it is perhaps the most gorgeous of all’, notes Olin Downes in The New York t.mes s a week before the premiere, praising its ‘…fantastical scenic transformations, a ballet of rivers, fishes, monsters of the deep. Earth, sky and sea display their marvels. There is unlimited variety of colors and figures on the stage for which Mr. Soudeikine has prepared the scenery’ (The New York t.mes s, 19 January 1930).

Another design for Sadko, which was also sold in the same sale in 1983, was resold at Replica Shoes ’s New York in March 2011 for $98,500 (fig.2). Another version of the same composition was sold at Replica Shoes 's London for £164,500 in June 2013.