Dovima with the Elephants by Richard Avedon
date: label: date made
content: ca 1960s
name: label: maker
content: Avedon, Richard
notes: label: Description
content: In this fashion photograph, Richard Avedon’s model Dovima is wearing a black Christian Dior dress with a white silk sash. The smooth, silky fabric contrasts with the rough wrinkled skin of the elephant in Paris’s famed Cirque d’Hiver. Dovima’s calm demeanor also contrasts with the elephant’s struggle with his chained foot. Her gesture and hand on the elephant’s trunk are meant to suggest a goddess-like ability to tame the beast.
label: Description
content: This photograph was included in Avedon’s one-man show at the Smithsonian in 1962. The center of the top edge reveals a water stain on the negative. At some point shortly after this print was made, the negative was rewashed so that other prints would not contain this darkroom artifact.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
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content: Photography
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content: Artifact Walls exhibit
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PG.006962
label: accession number
content: 246041
label: catalog number
content: 6962
objectType: label: Object Name
content: photograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 124.5 cm x 101.5 cm; 49 in x 39 15/16 in