Three nude studies of Lee Miller by Man Ray have sold as a single lot for $455,000, beating an estimate of $150,000 by 203.3%.

The prints headlined a photography sale at Sotheby's New York on September 30.

Lee Miller collaborated with Man Ray during the early 1930s

Miller travelled from the US to Paris in 1929, where she worked as an apprentice to the surrealist photographer.

They became an item and collaborated on a number of projects (many works from this era credited to Ray were in fact taken by Miller).

She went on to become an acclaimed photographer in her own right, documenting some of the fiercest battles of the second world war and the harrowing aftermath of the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau.

Man Ray's auction record stands at $1.2m for an untitled Rayograph that sold at Christie's New York last year. A major collection from his estate will cross the block at Sotheby's Paris on November 15.

Alexander Rodchenko's Steps was another highlight, realising $275,000 against a $250,000 estimate - an increase of 10%.

The work dates to 1929 and is among the most reproduced Russian works from the era, echoing the Odessa steps sequence in Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925).  

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