A print of Man Ray’s most famous photo sells for €120,000 at Paris auction

A print of Man Ray’s iconic photograph Le Violon d’Ingres has been sold at auction for €120,000 ($128,665). The print was one of three produced under the artist’s supervision, and until today was held in a private collection by a friend of the artst.

The image is renowned as one of the most famous of Ray’s photographs. It was taken in 1924 and shows the subject, of Kiki de Montparnasse, sitting with violin f-holes painted onto her back.

The original, signed by Ray, was sold at auction in 2022 for $12.4m. It fetched the highest amount ever for a single photograph.

The photograph was first published on the front cover of surrealist magazine Littérature. The title of the photograph was a play on words meaning “hobby”. It was a reference to the painter the painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, who enjoyed painting nudes and playing the violin in his spare time.

Alongside the famous photograph in the auction was a treasure trove of other images and works by Man Ray. These included several self-portraits and others featuring major literary and artistic figures including Jean Cocteau, Louis Aragon, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Proust.

Elodie Morel-Bazin, the European head of photography at the auctioneers Christie’s, said of this print that Ray “wanted to use a different technique so it’s completely different from the 1924 vintage print but is still one of the most iconic images in the world.”

It’s not unusual for famous photographs to fetch extremely high amounts at auction. Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother sold for $305,000 in 2022.

[via the guardian]

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