Set design by the partners Robert Colquhoun (1914-1962) and Robert MacBryde (1913-1966) for the ballet Donald of the Burthens, the last work created for Sadler's Wells Ballet by Leonide Massine, first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 12th December 1951. With an original score by the Scottish composer Ian Whyte, it is suggested that Massine, who was interested in character and folk dance, was trying to do for Scotland what The Three-cornered Hat had done for Spain. Massine carefully studied Scottish dance before choreographing the ballet, but as The Dancing Times maintained, while he had 'caught its wonderful patterning, lilting quality, impetuous and neatly complicated footwork... he failed to express the strange mystical belief of the Scottish people in the supernatural, their pawky humour, lyricism, and above all their romanticism and love of clear-cut statement.'

The Scottish designers known as 'the two Roberts' were Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde. Both from working-class Ayrshire backgrounds, Colquhoun and MacBryde won grants to attend Glasgow School of Art in 1933 where they met. They moved to London in 1941 where they shared a studio with John Minton and Jankel Adler, and became friends with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. They enjoyed huge success in the 1940s and 1950s, with Colquhoun being considered one of the leading artists of the day.

Donald of the Burthens was based on a Scottish legend concerning a woodcutter who makes a pact with Death about his ability to heal. Although acclaimed at its first performance, it was short-lived in performance.