Man Ray's Le Violon d'Ingres (1924), a famous portrait of a nude woman's back superimposed with a violin's f-holes, will be auctioned in May, with estimates ranging from $5 million to $7 million. It will become the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction if it sells for within that range. This print of Man Ray's classic portrait of his muse Kiki de Montparnasse is considered an original photographic copy, making it a rare find. It was created at the same time as the corresponding negative, making it valuable from the perspective of photographers.
In 2017, an original version of Noire et Blanche (1926) sold for $3 million at a Christie's sale in Paris, setting the current record for a photograph by Man Ray. Andreas Gursky holds the current auction record for a photograph, with his 1999 landscape Rhein II selling for $4.3 million at Christie's in 2011. In a statement, Darius Himes, Christie's foreign pictures specialist, stated, "As a photographic work, it is unmatched in the marketplace." "We're honored to be in charge of it."
The photograph is the most valuable item in the collection of New York collectors Rosalind Gersten Jacobs and Melvin Jacobs, who were fashion retailers with strong ties to Surrealist groups. In 1962, the Jacobs purchased Le Violon d'Ingres straight from Man Ray and have kept it ever since. At Christie's in New York, the work will be sold in a live single-owner sale dedicated to the Jacobs' Surrealist art collection. Rosalind, a long-serving executive at Macy's, passed away in 2019 at the age of 94. Peggy Jacobs Bader, the couple's daughter, and estate executor said in a statement that the works for sale show her parents' "playfulness and, at times, their mischievousness." Highlights from the collection, including pieces by Vija Celmins, René Magritte, and William N. Copley, will travel to London, Paris, and Hong Kong before arriving in New York, where they will be on display at Christie's Rockefeller Center premises before being auctioned in May.
Man Ray's works have recently performed well at auction, despite the fact that their sales have been controversial. In 2021, the estate of Man Ray's late assistant, Lucien Triellard, auctioned a trove of over 200 pieces by Man Ray and other artists in his circle. Despite assertions from the Man Ray Trust that the pieces in the sale were taken illegally—allegations that the auction house denied—the sale made a total of $7.1 million at Christie's in Paris.
Jean Dubreil
