Broken Path1

Most Expensive Photograph February 15, 2006 - 5:06PM
The Pond-Moonlight by Edward Steichen has become the most expensive photograph ever, as it was just recentely sold for more than $2,928,000 during a Sotheby’s sale which began in New York on February 14, 2006. The expensive photograph was taken on Long Island in 1904. There are three known copies of the most expensive photograph in , and the picture is valued for its rarity because it is an early example of color autochrome photography. The other two copies of the photograph are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Modern Art.

$US2,928,000

Pond-Moonlight by Edward Steichen

The 10 most expensive photographs in the world in US dollar figures.

1. Edward Steichen Pond-Moonlight (1904), $US2,928,000+, 2006
2. Richard Prince Untitled (Cowboy) (1989), $1,248,000, 2005
3. Gustave Le Gray The Great Wave, Sete, (1857), $838,000, 1999
4. Andreas Gursky Untitled 5 1997, $559,724, Feb. 6, 2002
5. Gustave Le Gray Tree (1855), $513,150, 1999
6. Diane Arbus Identical Twins (Cathleen and Colleen), Roselle, N.J. (1967), $478,400, Apr. 27, 2004
7. Charles Sheeler Ford Works (1927), $447,350, 1999
8. Alfred Stieglitz Georgia O’Keefe: Hands with Thimble, $398,500, May 31, 1998
9. Gustave Le Gray Marine 1855, $368,420, 2000
10. August Sander Handlanger, porteur de briques (Brick carrier) 1927, $328,940, 1999
The market for photography as an art form has come a long way in the last several decades. Pictures that were once sold for less than $100, or even casually thrown away, are now hot properties on the auction market… As always, the results are taken from Artnet’s signature Fine Art Auctions Database src
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