 Ivan Vsevolozhsky took up the directorship of the Hermitage Museum in 1899, a post that required supervision over performances given at the museum's theatre.Vsevolozhsky commissioned Marius Petipa—the renowned "Premier maître de ballet" of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres—to begin work on three short ballets to be given for performances attended by the Imperial Russian court for the 1900–1901 season.Petipa began crafting scenarios for these ballets, drawing on a variety of differing subjects.