A photograph taken over 100 years ago has become the most expensive print ever to be sold at auction.

The Pond-Moonlight, taken by photography pioneer Edward Steichen in 1904, sold for £1.6 million at the auction due to its importance in the development of photography, with the photographer using a multiple-process platinum printing technique to develop the print.

Taken in Long Island, New York, the print shows a pond in a wooded area and is one of just three prints remaining.

Both of the other prints are currently in museum collections, which clearly helped to increase the value of this one when it was put up for auction by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The amount paid for the print is almost double the previous world record for a photograph, although the buyer has so far remained anonymous.

Stephen Perloff, the editor of the Photograph Collector magazine, told Associated Press before the item went up for auction that it would be a "moment of history".

Platinum or palladium can be used in the printing process by mixing them in solutions with ferric oxalate, a sensitiser solution, applying it to fine rag paper and then exposing the paper to ultraviolet light, when the reaction of the ferric oxalate reduces the platinum metal out of the solution and thereby creates the image on the paper.

This method results in the platinum or palladium becoming embedded in the paper, creating a picture that is said to be as permanent as the paper itself.


Ÿ Adfero Ltd