Mar 23, 2010 - Sale 2208

Sale 2208 - Lot 80

Price Realized: $ 21,600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 18,000 - $ 22,000
STEICHEN, EDWARD (1879-1973)/PETERSEN, ROLF
"Isadora Duncan at the Portrals of the Parthenon." Toned silver print, 13 3/4x10 1/2 inches (35x26.7 cm.), flush mounted, with Steichen's signature, in pencil, on recto; his signature, title and date, in pencil, with the print date and Joanna Steichen's initials, in pencil, and other notations, in pencil, in an unknown hand, on mount verso. 1921; printed 1960s
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Additional Details

Originally in a private New York collection; acquired via agent in 2005.
Steichen: A Life in Photography, 86.
Steichen's Legacy, 175.
In 1921, Edward Steichen traveled to Venice for a vacation. While crossing the Grand Canal in a gondola, he thought he heard the dancer Isadora Duncan's voice. Steichen discovered it was Duncan, along with her pianist and pupils, who were known as the Isadorables. Duncan convinced Steichen to accompany them on a trip to Greece with the promise she''d allow him to film her dancing on the Acropolis. However, upon arriving in Athens, Duncan had a change of heart but told Steichen she would pose for a few still photographs.

Steichen borrowed a Kodak camera from the head waiter at his hotel. He and Duncan made several trips to the Parthenon. Every time Duncan began to move, she would stop, feeling she was an intruder in the environment. After a few days and various failed attempts, Steichen was able to persuade her to stand at the portal of the Parthenon. Setting up his camera at a sufficient distance he framed her within the entire structure. Steichen suggested she make this lovely gesture, a deliberate raising of her arms. After about fifteen minutes and several attempts, Duncan positioned herself in this quintessential pose, with a movement that appears to envelope the sky.

Duncan's artistic style of dancing was greatly influenced by the Greek architectural friezes and the drawings on the Greek vases. It was said "She was a part of Greece, and she took Greece as a part of herself." Their joint adventure to the great temple would be the only time Duncan posed for pictures at the Parthenon.