A photograph titled The Pond-Moonlight, taken by U.S. photographer Edward Steichen in 1904, sold for more than $2.9 million US on Tuesday, a world record for a photograph.
The Pond-Moonlight shows a pond in a wooded area with light coming through the trees a reflected on the water. It was taken on Long Island by Steichen, one of a group of early photographers who helped elevate photography to a fine art.
Peter MacGill of Pace/MacGill Gallery bought the photo on behalf of a private collector at an auction of more than 140 photographs at Sotheby's
auction house in New York.
The previous record for a photograph sold at auction was $1,248,000 US,
paid last November for Richard Prince's Untitled (Cowboy).
Two photographs of artist Georgia O'Keeffe taken by her husband Alfred
Stieglitz sold at the Tuesday evening auction, also for more than the
previous record.
The auction also included works by Paul Outerbridge Jr., Edward Weston and Alvin Langdon Coburn.
February 14, 2006
