5 most expensive photograph ever sold!!
- patiphan suwanprateep
- Oct 9, 2016
- 2 min read
1. Phantom, $6.5 million

This photo was taken by Peter Lik, a famous fine art photographer who is famous for his landscape photography. This photo was sold for $6,500,000 to a private collector along with his other photos “illusion, $2.4 million” and “eternal mood, $1.1 million”. Peter Lik is usually well-known for his landscape photography, capturing mother nature’s vibrant colour, but Phantom was a rare case that he took it with black and white. "Certain textures and contours found in nature lend themselves beautifully to black and white photography," said Lik. "The intensity of contrasting light and dark spaces was surprising, but made for some of the most powerful images I've ever created."
2. Rhein II, $4.3 million

Rhein II is a photograph by a German photographer, Andreas Gursky. It was first bought by an anonymous German collector and then the collector sold the print by auction at Christie’s New York, 2011. This photograph was the second of a set of six photos of River Rhine. The things you see in this picture was digitally edited, the river flows between the green field under an overcast sky. Other detail such as dog walker and factory building was removed.
3. 99 cent II Diptychon, $3.34 million

Again this photo was also taken and edited by Andreas Gursky. It shows an interior of a 99 cent supermarket in Hollywood from a high point of view, showing numerous goods in store resulting in a colorful detailed pattern of items. Some people say this photo is a masterpiece that can illustrate the aggressive capitalism of the modern world.
4. The Pond-Moonlight, $2.9 million

This is a photograph by Edward Steichen. It was taken in Mamaroneck, New York. In this picture you can see trees across the pond and the reflection on the surface. It is pretty interesting that it is a mood at the horizon. At first I thought it was a sunset or sunrise because normally you wouldn’t get to see the moon rise. This picture is an example of pictorialist photograph. For those of you who don’t know what is pictorialism, it refer to a style in which the photographer would manipulate a normal photograph to convey the message. In other word, to create a photograph rather than just simply record it. Pictorial photograph usually lack of sharp focus, create a soft dreamy look. It is usually printed with more color other than black-white and to have a visible stroke or brush manipulation on the surface.
5. Dovima with elephants

This picture of the highest paid model in that time, Dovima, and the elephants was one of the most famous fashion photograph of all time. The photographer, Richard Avedon, set up a photoshoot as a showcase for Christian Dior. The photoshoot was in a circus in Paris where the elephants was kept. He saw the skylight lit beautifully on the circus elephants and he knew that there was a potential for a dream image. Dovima was asked to get closed to the elephants to pose and it was a scary things to do. Although, the elephants was chained but it was still dangerous as it moved behind the model. This picture is famous for the reason of its contrary: youth and age, strength and frailty, grace and awkwardness, freedom and captivity.
コメント