On Tuesday, February 14, we offered Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks, 65 years to the day after Swann held the first U.S. auction dedicated to photographs, The Marshall Sale, on February 14, 1952.
Lot 285: Group of 22 photographs from NASA missions, 1965-84, printed circa 1985.
Sold February 14, 2017 for $43,750.
The $1.5M sale featured a run of lots related to the moon landing and space exploration. A group of 22 large cibachrome prints from NASA missions, 1965-84, reached a final price of $43,750, above a high estimate of $25,000. A related archive of approximately 280 photographs of various Apollo missions, 1969-72, earned $5,460, while a set of ten contemporary assemblages depicting the moon was sold for $6,250.
Lot 13: Eadweard Muybridge, 50 plates from Animal Locomotion, 1887. Sold February 14, 2017 for $62,500.
Though twentieth century works commanded most of the highest prices, the top lot of the sale was a collection of 50 plates from Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion, 1887, which sold to a private collector for $62,500. All five offered lots by Muybridge sold.
Lot 6: Six-plate tintype of Edgar Allan Poe, after a daguerreotype by William A. Pratt, taken a few weeks before Poe’s death, 1849-late 1850s.
Sold February 14, 2017 for $37,500.
One highlight of the sale was a rare sixth-plate tintype of Edgar Allan Poe, taken after a daguerreotype captured just three weeks before this death, which more than doubled its high estimate of $15,000 to sell to a collector after competitive bidding for $37,500.
Lot 32: Edward S. Curtis, Chief of the Desert, Navajo, orotone, 1904.
Sold February 14, 2017 for $23,750.
A run of nine works by Edward S. Curtis all found buyers, led by Chief of the Desert, Navajo, a 1904 orotone portrait in its original frame, which sold for $23,750. The Rush Gatherer, a 1910 orotone also in its original frame, realized $20,000.
Lot 144: Roy DeCarava, Dancers, silver print, 1956, printed 1981.
Sold February 14, 2017 for $40,000, a record for the work.
Both offered lots by Roy DeCarava set auction records, with the 1956 silver print Dancers earning $40,000, above a high estimate of $25,000. Lewis W. Hine’s dramatic silver print Empire State Building, circa 1930, sold for $37,500, above a high estimate of $18,000.
Lot 268: Album with approximately 265 photographs of San Francisco in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, silver prints, 1906.
Sold February 14, 2017 for $13,750.
An album of approximately 265 photographs depicting the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was purchased by an institution for $13,750, more than twice its high estimate of $6,000.
Lot 322: Lucien Clergue, Picasso en Provence, maquette for unpublished book featuring 150 candid photographs of Picasso by Clergue, silver prints, 1987.
Sold February 14, 2017 for $15,000.
The sale closed with a selection of photobooks. A maquette by Lucien Clergue for his unpublished book Picasso en Provence, featuring 150 candid, intimate and rarely seen photographs of Pablo Picasso, was purchased for $15,000. An early travelogue by Scottish photographer John Thomson, titled Illustrations of China and its People, Volumes I and II, 1873, went to a collector for $15,000. Several editions of Camera Work, the photograph magazine published by Alfred Stieglitz at the dawn of the twentieth century, were offered with a 100% sell-through rate.
For full results, browse our catalogue.
Our next photographs sale will be held April 20, 2017.
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