Rare photo sets $2.9m sale record
Discussion
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/amer
Rare 1904 colour autochrome photograph by Edward Steichen
Rare 1904 colour autochrome photograph by Edward Steichen
BBC said:
A rare print taken by US photography pioneer Edward Steichen has set a world record for the highest price paid for a photograph auction.
The Pond-Moonlight - taken in New York in 1904 - was sold for $2.9m (£1.6m), more than doubling the previous record.
The 41x48cm photo shows a pond in a wooded area with light coming through the trees and reflected in the water.
The only other two copies in existence are in museum collections. The buyer's identity has yet to be disclosed.
But no doubt he or she feels that owning a piece of photographic history is more than worth the record-breaking price-tag, the BBC's Elettra Neysmith says.
The photograph was put up for sale by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has another copy in its collection.
Stephen Perloff, the editor of the Photograph Collector, a newsletter about the photography art market, said before the Steichen auction that it would be a "moment of history", the Associated Press news agency reports.
Steichen began experimenting with colour photography in 1904.
He was one of the first Americans to use the autochrome - a revolutionary method of producing colour photographs.
The previous record for highest price for a photograph at auction was set last November by Richard Prince's Untitled (Cowboy). It sold for $1,248,000 (£719,000).
The Pond-Moonlight was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York.
matt gravy said:
photos are for looking at...
Only part of it.
There's also the appreciation of the art and the skill of the photographer.
There are millions of people who would flick through a glossy car mag and say "Pictures of cars, very nice but so what...?" and you'll also get the portion of the population who admire not only the subject but also the way it's photographed and presented.
Whoever bought this obviously has an appreciation of the object beyond the aesthetics.
matt gravy said:
"Pictures of cars, very nice but so what...?"
An early colour photo that happens to be very rare, but so what...?
Exactly, thanks for proving the point.
You don't appreciate it but the buyer obviously does, good luck to them. Everyone like different things for different reasons.
(I'd also love to have that kind of money to buy artisitic things I appreciate.)
matt gravy said:
Sad thing is . . . that pic will get stored in a safe.
best place for it. If someone posted that shot here and claimed that they had taken it they'd get shot down in flames or ignored.
It was taken in 1904 on primitive equipment and long exposure, not yesterday on a digital.
FourWheelDrift said:
I think the point here is that it's a very early colour photo, taken by one of the pioneers of colour photography approximately 30 years before colour photography became in any way accessable to the masses.
Unless you were being sarcastic of course
Sorry, still cant see why its worth 2.9 mill, just silly money if you ask me.
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