Femme a la Mandoline, an etching and aquatint by Tamara de Lempicka, $6500 (£5115) at Antique Arena.
The model was her closest female friend, confidante and lover, Ira Perrot (de Lempicka had first painted her wearing a blue dress in 1922).
Starting in 1929, she finished the painting after a first visit to the US (arriving in New York only days before the stock market crash), adding in a skyline of Manhattan skyscrapers to the background.
The original oil, exhibited at the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1930 as Lempicka’s star began to rise, was sold at Christie’s New York in 2018 for around $9m. However, de Lempicka, a master of self-promotion, also issued the image as a limited edition print in c.1933.
This example, signed in pencil lower left and numbered 23 out of 100, came for auction at Antique Arena (28% buyer’s premium) in Brooklyn, New York, on August 12 with an estimate of just $100-150.
These artist-signed prints by de Lempicka can retail for closer to $15,000 and this one hammered for $6500 (£5115).
