Volsk Musuem of Local Lore
The work was exhibited in the show “Jack of diamonds” in 1916. In the explanation to the picture Burliuk describes it as following: "it is a sample of rarely identified large-conch surface. There is a young woman – the Queen of the Wilhelm’s Ball — in her hands an electric seven-lighted fan. Her head is deprived of hair and skin; her eye sockets are looking dead. Is it not a prototype of Western culture that led to the most terrible war?” The image of death is represented by the artist in the form of figures of dancing skeletons, painted in white on a textured background. The background itself is a mottled Cubo-futuristic mosaic of coloured stripes and pigmented layers.
The turmoil of war has caused a failure in the work of many artists. Larionov, Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque stopped working for a while. From the ranks of the avant-garde personalities, such as Nikolai Kulbin, Mikhail Le Dantu, were torn, as well as the artist's brother Vladimir Burliuk. For many it was a time of return to the traditional painting. At the same time, the artists actively used the elements of the preceding avant-garde movement — symbolism. In the paintings, as images of the death, harlequins, Pierrot and skeletons appear again. But from the former refined symbolism of the masters of the "World of art", avant-garde artists are distinguished by a special expression, which is mainly showed itself in bright colour and densely applied paint.