- Late last year, the British model Kate Moss revealed a personal fact that intrigued not only the fashion and celebrity media, but also the art world.
- The revelation...included the claim that the swallows on her haunch were the work of the German-born British artist Lucian Freud, who had died the previous year.
- In a rare interview published in the December issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Ms. Moss pondered the financial value of that tattoo: “It’s an original Freud. I wonder how much a collector would pay for that? A few million? I’d skin-graft it.”
- The numbers might sound surprising, but a nude portrait of Ms. Moss, painted by Mr. Freud in 2002 while the model was pregnant, sold three years later at Christie’s in London for...about $5.14 million at current exchange rates.
- The mention of a skin graft put the spotlight on the relationship between tattoos and fine art — and by extension, art collection.
Read the full (and often surprising) NY Times article here.
[Pictured above: Tattoo On Human Skin. (Skin taken from an executed criminal, France, 1850-1900). Wellcome Collection.]
