Four photographs of Kate Moss sold for more than $360,000 at Christie's London in May, the latest demonstration that she has become an art world darling. "Sphinx," an exhibition of Moss in a series of remarkably vacant contortions (left) by Marc Quinn is currently on view at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York (through June 30). Moss was the official poster-girl for "Face of Fashion," an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Two years ago a painting of a pregnant Moss by Lucian Freud sold for more than $7 million.

Among the photos sold in May was Chuck Close's rendering of Moss sans makeup and clothes for the September 2003 issue of W magazine -- a complete set of six prints that fetched nearly $166,000, more than five times the estimate. A larger-than-life nude of Kate in Marrakech (right) taken by Albert Watson in January 1993 and published in German Vogue, fetched an artist's-record $106,542. Irving Penn's platinum print Kate Moss (Hand on Neck) from 1996 sold for $75,763, and Corinne Day's notorious 1993 depiction of a scantily-clad waifish Kate framed by candy-colored lights, first published in British Vogue, sold for more than $13,021.

Recently named one of Time's 100 most influential people and with a clothing line now in Topshop and Barneys, Moss has become an even more ubiquitous icon since the Daily Mirror caught her on camera in 2005 partaking in what appeared to be a pile of coke. Last year, two pranksters snuck a Kate Moss Floor Mat, appropriating the infamous Daily Mirror cover shot, into the Whitney Biennial. As Quinn sees it, "In a world without gods and goddesses, celebrity has replaced divinity. What is interesting to me about Kate Moss is that she is someone whose image has completely separated from her real self and this image has a life of its own."

A life that elicits a lot of cold hard cash.

-- Kelly Devine Thomas

Irving Penn, Kate Moss (Hand on Neck), 1996.