Dovima with Elephants

A woman in a black gown tips her head back, and an elephant lowers its huge head toward her, almost tenderly. This is Dovima with Elephants, photographed by Richard Avedon in August 1955 at the Cirque d'Hiver, the old winter circus in Paris. ### The gown and the giants Dovima wears an evening gown made for Christian Dior, its design often credited to a nineteen-year-old Yves Saint Laurent. A sleek black sheath is split by a long ivory sash that pours down like a ribbon of light to her satin heels. Follow the sash and your eye travels one clean vertical stroke through the dark mass of gown and animal, straight to the scattered straw at her feet. Avedon said the elephants were the first thing he saw — the light on these animals, under the circus skylight, was where the picture began. Every fold and crease of the hide is caught in sharp grey: rough, dry, and immense, the perfect foil for the couture beside it. ### A bridge between two worlds One arm folds back to the elephant behind her, the other reaches far across to a second elephant, so her slender body becomes a bridge between two giants. But look down and the fantasy admits something harder — at the elephant's foot, half-hidden in the straw, runs a heavy chain. Avedon's large-format camera keeps Dovima crisp and luminous, so your eye finds her first, every time. In 2010 a print sold for over a million dollars, bought fittingly by the House of Dior. It survives as a gelatin silver print held in major museums, still in copyright with the Richard Avedon Foundation. For more close readings like this, see Nighthawks by Edward Hopper or browse 2 Minutes Art on YouTube.