Most Expensive Photograph

The Pond-Moonlight by Edward Steichen has become the most expensive photograph ever, as it was just recentely sold for more than $2,900,000 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
Richard Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy) was previously the most expensive photograph in the world. The photograph can be seen as destroying the American cowboy myth. The cowboy is a stand-in for the artist himself, endlessly running off into the sunset. This most expensive photograph in the world creates a desire to experience rather than worry about material value of things.



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

1. Edward Steichen Pond-Moonlight (1904), $2,900,000+, 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