Image size is 7.25 x 9.25 inches (18.4 x 23.5 cm).

Provenance: From the collection of Gilberte Brassai (the artist's widow), to the Edwynn Houk Gallery, to a Private Collection, New York.

Brassaï (1899-1984) was born Gyula Halász in Brasso, Transylvania, Hungary (now Romania) and after emigrating to Paris in 1924, he worked as a journalist. He began taking photographs in 1929 to create a book that had been forming in his imagination. At that time he changed his name to Brassaï, which means "from Brasso."

Except for an interlude during World War II, Brassaï worked as a freelance magazine photographer and writer for publications including Minotaure, Verve, Coronet, Picture Post, and Harper's Bazaar. Through the late 1960s, he continued working with Harper's Bazaar, traveling extensively on assignment. Many of his photographs made in England, Spain, the United States, and Brazil were published in magazine articles during his lifetime, but are virtually unknown today.

The artist was awarded the first Grand Prix National de la Photographie in Paris (1978), the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (1974), and the Chevlier de l'Ordre de la Legion d' Honneur (1976). At the time of his death in 1984, Brassaï had published 17 books and hundreds of articles, and held numerous exhibitions of his photographs, sculpture, and drawings. His film, Tant qu'il aura des bêtes, 1955, won the prize for Most Original Film at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.