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 elephants’s 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.
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 wouldn’t contain this darkroom artifact.
Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.
If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.