Most expensive photograph ever sold

What to remember

In French, a "violon d'Ingres" is a hobby, a reference to the pastime in which the painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres excelled. In 1924 American artist Man Ray borrowed the phrase for a black-and-white photograph: model Kiki de Montparnasse seen from the back, with two f-holes painted on to liken the shape of her body to a violin.

On May 14, 2022, at Christie's New York, the work sold for $12,400,000. That is the highest price ever paid for a photograph, including the buyer's premium, the auction house's fee.

The picture is one of Man Ray's best-known works and one of the best known in surrealist photography. It first appeared in June 1924 in the Surrealist magazine Littérature, in its thirteenth issue.