page_title: The Pheasantry
section_title: Pheasantry studios
hierarchical_section_title: The Pheasantry / Pheasantry studios
caption_attribution_description: English: Serafina Astafieva c. 1890s.
context_page_description: The Pheasantry, 152 King's Road, Chelsea, London, is a Grade II listed building that was home to a number of important figures in 1960s London and a small music venue in the 1970s where a number of bands were able to play their first gigs.
context_section_description: In the early 1900s, one occupant of the Pheasantry was Eleanor Thornton (drowned 1915), a favourite model of artist and sculptor Charles Sykes. Thornton may have been the model for Sykes' most famous work, his Rolls Royce mascot the Spirit of Ecstasy.
  From 1916, part of the building was a ballet academy run by the dance teacher Serafina Astafieva (1876–1934), great niece of Leo Tolstoy. Astafieva trained Alicia Markova who came to Diaghilev's attention when he visited the school in 1921 and went on to join his Ballets Russes. Anton Dolin and Margot Fonteyn also trained there.
  From 1950, the Italian painter Pietro Annigoni spent six months a year in Britain using the Pheasantry as his British studio.
caption: Serafina Astafieva, c. 1890s
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