''Le Violon d'Ingres'' (French for ''Ingres's Violin'') is a black-and-white photograph created by American visual artist Man Ray in 1924. It is one of his best-known photographs and of surrealist photography. The picture was first published in the Surrealist magazine '' Littérature'' in June 1924. It shows model

Kiki de Montparnasse Alice Ernestine Prin (2 October 1901 – 29 April 1953), nicknamed the ''Queen of Montparnasse'' and often known as ''Kiki de Montparnasse'', was a French model, chanteuse, actress, memoirist and painter during the Jazz Age. She flourished ...

from the back, nude to below her waist, with two f-holes painted on to make her body resemble a violin.

Analysis

The photograph takes its name from a popular French expression, ''le violon d'Ingres'', which means a hobby, in reference to the fact that the French neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres used to play the violin as a pastime when he was not painting. Man Ray admired Ingres's work and he drew inspiration from his painting ''

The Valpinçon Bather ''The Valpinçon Bather'' (Fr: ''La Grande Baigneuse'') is an 1808 painting by the French Neoclassical artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867), held in the Louvre since 1879. Painted while the artist was studying at the French Acad ...

'' (1808) for this photograph. He had his model and then lover Kiki de Montparnasse pose for him. In a first photograph, ''Étude pour Le Violon d'Ingres'', she is seen of profile, with her face and breasts visible. In the final picture, she is depicted in a similar way to the female model of Ingres, nude and seated, looking slightly to her left, seen from the back and with an oriental inspired turban. Her arms are not visible. After the photograph was developed, he painted on a print the f-holes of a violin onto her back, and had the print rephotographed, creating the present work of art. The title humorously shows Ray's goal of depicting the model's torso as a musical instrument, and plays with the fact that she was the artist's model and lover at the same time. Kirsten Hoving Powell stated on the photograph: "''Le Violon d'Ingres'' is a complex photograph that demonstrates Man Ray's long‐standing admiration for Ingres, as well as his desire to mock tradition. Man Ray's distortion and deformation of the model's body engage Surrealist concepts of metamorphosis and formlessness, but they also belong to a larger context of fascination for Ingres's manipulations of anatomy during the interwar period, as seen in the writings of critics such as André Lhote."

Art market

An original print of ''Le Violon d'Ingres'' set a new record for the most expensive photograph when it sold for $12,400,000, on 14 May 2022, at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. Man Ray’s Famed Photograph of Kiki de Montparnasse Sells for Record $12.4 M

Public collections

There are prints of the photograph at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, in Paris, and at the J. Paul Getty Museum, in Los Angeles.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Violon d'Ingres 1920s photographs 1924 in art Photographs by Man Ray Black-and-white photographs Photographs in the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne Photographs of the J. Paul Getty Museum