''Le Violon d'Ingres'' (French for ''Ingres's Violin'') is a black-and-white photograph created by American visual artist
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American naturalized French visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, ...
in 1924. It is one of his best-known photographs and of
surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
photography. The picture was first published in the Surrealist magazine ''
Littérature'' in June 1924.
It shows model
Kiki de Montparnasse from the back, nude to below her waist, with two
f-holes
A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board.
Sound holes have different shapes:
* Round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins;
* F-holes in instruments from the viol ...
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
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( ; ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...
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'' (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 in 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, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
.
Public collections
There are prints of the photograph at the
Musée National d'Art Moderne
The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou. In 2021 it ranked 10th in the list of ...
, in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, and at the
J. Paul Getty Museum, in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
.
See also
*
List of most expensive photographs
This is a list of the 30 highest prices paid for photographs (in United States dollar, US dollars unless otherwise stated). All prices include the buyer's premium, which is the auction house fee for handling the work.
List
Disputed claim
# In D ...
*
List of photographs considered the most important
This is a list of photographs considered the most important in surveys where authoritative sources review the history of the medium not limited by time period, region, genre, topic, or other specific criteria. These images may be referred to as t ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Violon d'Ingres, Le
1920s photographs
1924 in art
Photographs by Man Ray
Black-and-white photographs
Photographs in the Musée National d'Art Moderne
Photographs in the J. Paul Getty Museum