Tanya Yip‘s fantasy of tranforming herself into a cello and then being masterfully played has an obvious visual inspiration:  Man Ray’s famous image Violon d’Ingres:

An erotic inspiration indeed, especially since the model who posed for the picture was the stunning Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Prin), who posed for any number of other striking things, such as this 1920 photograph (thus taken when Kiki would have been 18 or 19) Mädchen mit Vase by Julian Mandel.

I felt well-moved writing Tanya’s fantasy — the analogy between a master musician and a skilled lover seems to me very close.  (And the analogy also works the other way:  cf Honoré de Balzac:  “The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.”)  I suppose there’s a rather radical bondage element as well as a transformation fantasy element.  After all, if you’re a cello, you can’t move and you’re at the mercy of whoever holds you…