Violon d'Ingres

By superimposing the violin’s iconic sound holes onto an image of the model Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Ernestine Prin), Man Ray transforms the female body into an instrument to be played at will. The photograph invokes the erotic innuendos long associated with the violin in art. Placing f-holes on the woman’s back and only partially showing her face heightens her objectification. Her pose references two paintings by the nineteenth-century French artist Ingres that feature eroticized, subjugated women: The Valpinçon Bather (1808) and The Turkish Bath (1852–59/62), each of which depicts a nude odalisque wearing a turban.