Big Splash

Robert Voltaire's "The Dolphin" Fetches $22,000 at Auction

One of photographer Robert Voltaire’s outtakes brought a substantial take this week when his fine art nude sold for $22,000 at a Beverly Hills auction. The black and white photo, titled “Il Delphino” (or “The Dolphin”), portrays model Anna Grigorenko propelling her bare body out of the Mediterranean Sea, creating a burst of water around her. Though it was an outtake from a shoot for famed designer Lloyd Klein, the image went to an unnamed Swedish buyer for a hefty sum, proving society’s international and infinite fascination with youth and beauty. Voltaire has long photographed models, both clothed and unclothed, for Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, and Playboy<. “Photography is about storytelling and fantasy,” Voltaire wrote on his blog explaining the allure of his artistic medium. “Ultimately a photograph can never capture a person’s true beauty its up to the viewer to interpret it.”