Photograph of Long Island Pond Brings World Record Price of $2.9 million at Sotheby's Edward Steichen’s The Pond-Moonlight shattered the world record for a photograph at auction, selling to applause for $2,928,000, almost three times its high estimate.
News-Antique.com - Nov 30,-0001 - New York, New York, – At Sotheby’s before a crowded room, Edward Steichen’s The Pond-Moonlight shattered the world record for a photograph at auction, selling to applause for $2,928,000, almost three times its high estimate (est. $700,000/1 million*), to Peter MacGill of Pace-MacGill Gallery on behalf of a private collector.
Steichen viewed photography as an art, not an isolated field. To Steichen, "photography was the art of light," and means of giving "visible form to human emotion." Steichen observed and experimented with the changing of light and the effects it had on the mood of the picture.
The photograph was one of 35 works offered in the first session of Important Photographs from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, including Works from the Gilman Paper Company Collection, which totaled $11,472,000 and was 100% sold by lot and by amount. Also highlighting the single-owner sale, which featured turn-of-the-last century and 20th century photographs, were two photographs by Alfred Stieglitz of Georgia O’Keeffe: Hands, which brought $1,472,000 (est. $300/500,000), a record for the artist at auction, and Nude, which achieved $1,360,000 (est. $300/500,000), both selling to a West Coast Dealer. Three additional artist records were set this evening for Margrethe Mather, Paul Outerbridge Jr. and Margaret Bourke-White at auction.
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