1925 Man Ray Paris France Photography of Princess Mary Eristavi Shervashidze

Description: 1925 Man Ray Paris France Photography of Princess Mary Eristavi Shervashidze. Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known for his pioneering photography, and was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. He is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called “rayographs” in reference to himself. Man Ray’s Le Violon d’Ingres (1924), a famed photograph depicting a nude Kiki de Montparnasse’s back overlaid with a violin’s f-holes, sold for $12.4 million on May 14, 2022, setting a new world record as the most expensive photograph ever to be sold at auction. The sale came after a drawn-out bidding period that lasted nearly ten minutes during Christie’s New York’s auction dedicated to Surrealist art. On 9 November 2017 Man Ray’s Noire et Blanche (1926), formerly in the collection of Jacques Doucet, was purchased at Christie’s Paris for €2,688,750 (US$3,120,658), becoming (at that time) the 14th most expensive photograph to ever sell at auction. This was a record not only for Man Ray’s work in the photographic medium but also for the sale at auction of any vintage photograph. Only two other works by Man Ray in any medium have commanded more at auction than the price captured by the 2017 sale of Noire et blanche. His 1916 canvas Promenade sold for $5,877,000 on 6 November 2013, at the Sotheby’s New York Impressionist & Modern Art Sale. And on 13 November 2017, his assemblage titled Catherine Barometer (1920), sold for $3,252,500 at Christie’s in New York. —- This is an original photograph by Man Ray depicting Princess Mary Eristavi Shervashidze wearing tiara. Frame is for display only. Mary (Mariam, Maria) nee Shervashidze was a prominent Georgian Abkhazian aristocrat, fashion icon, and one of the earliest models of Coco Chanel. Mary was born in Batumi, but she lived in St. Petersburg, where pretty girl became a lady in waiting of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia. In 1925, the beautiful girl was invited to work with Coco Chanel, an increasingly popular French designer at the time. According to legend, the portrait of the princess was in the bedroom of Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly. Mary held a respectable position in Georgian high society, as well as the Russian Imperial court for the last few decades of its existence. Mary is believed to be the hopeless infatuation of Galaktion Tabidze, one of the leading Georgian poets of the time. Mary was born October 17, 1888 (or 1895), in Batumi into the family of Georgian General Major Prince Prokof Shervashidze. She was popular in Georgia for her beauty and gentle complexion and even drew compliments from Emperor Nicholas II of Russia when he met her during his 1912 visit to Tiflis. Because her father became a member of the Imperial Duma, the family soon had to move to Saint Petersburg where Mary became a lady-in-waiting to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. After her father’s death, Mary moved back to her native Georgia and spent the rest of her youth in the west of the country with her mother and twin sisters, Ellen and Tamar. After the establishment of the First Georgian Republic following the Russian Revolution, Mary’s fiancé Prince George Eristavi — an important Georgian nobleman, great-great grandson of King Heraclius II of Georgia and a former aide-de-camp of Nicholas II — returned to Georgia with intent to marry her. They wed in Kutaisi soon after his arrival and, likely because of security reasons, settled permanently in the country which at that time was a stable Menshevik stronghold under German protection. The peace in Georgia did not last long and the couple was forced to flee the country in March 1921, during the Red Army Invasion. To escape imminent imprisonment, deportation or death, Mary, along with other prominent Georgian noblemen and government officials, departed on a ship from the city of Batumi. She was reunited with her husband in Istanbul where George had been waiting for her; the couple continued the voyage to France together. After arriving in Paris, Mary and George settled on the Rue de la Tour in the 16th arrondissement, a district popular with the French high society. Because of losses incurred as a result of fleeing Georgia, Mary’s family met some financial problems while living in this expensive neighborhood. For this reason, Mary’s mother and sisters, Ellen and Tamar, initially lived with the young couple. This situation changed when the family managed to open its own clothing atelier and further improved as Mary found a modeling position with Coco Chanel, an increasingly popular French designer at the time. Despite the success as a model, Mary perceived this work as humiliation. After the parquet of the Winter Palace, walking along the catwalk seemed to her beneath her dignity. Therefore, at the first opportunity, the princess left the fashion world. And even after a while, she did not like to remember her modeling experience. Soon after this success, Mary’s family moved out and her beloved husband, George, died in 1946. She was depressed; the couple had not had any children. Mary spent the rest of her life living alone and rarely made contact with other Georgian émigrés, with the exception of her visits to a local parish of the Georgian Orthodox Church. In the final years of her life she was forced to move to a nursing home where, thanks to her improved financial circumstances, she was provided with a personal maid. Despite the relocation, she continued to visit her friends in the 16th arrondissement to play cards. According to her friend Babo Dadiani, Mary’s room was filled with flowers from known and unknown admirers. Because of the Soviet Union’s closed-door immigration policy, Mary, just like other émigrés from the First Republic, was never able to return to Batumi, passing away in France at the age of 97. Died on January 21, 1986 in Paris. She and her husband were buried at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery. Mary was painted by Savely Sorin; her husband by Tamara de Lempicka, a popular Polish painter. Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze is sometimes thought to have been in love with Mary. The word of Tabidze’s alleged romantic feelings for the princess spread throughout Georgia after the publication of his poem titled “Mary,” in which the poet bitterly described the wedding ceremony of a certain Mary, without specifying whether he was referring to Princess Eristavi. Princess Mary herself disagreed with the rumors, stressing that the poem was first published in 1915 in a Georgian journal Theater and Life, while her wedding to Prince George Eristavi did not occur until 1918. Some sources confirm this, alleging that it was only in 1935 when Galaktion met Mary by accident as she sat in front of Louvre.

Price: 100000 USD

Location: Austin, Texas

End Time: 2024-04-16T05:06:59.000Z

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