Why 3346457?

As of today, the most expensive photograph is by a German photographer Andreas Gursky called “99 cents.” This picture was sold in 2007 at the Sotheby's auction for US $3,346,456.00

On this website you can alter the history of photographic art with your own hands.
With each voice the panoramic photograph “Planet Earth” becomes pricier. When the numbers reach 3346457, “Planet Earth” will become the most expensive photograph in history.

A brief history on commercial demands for photographic works of art

The end of the 20th century was tragic in the world of photography. Many famous photographers left the world leaving their pictures as a memory of them, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton. The deprived society of art appreciators suddenly became more interested in photography.

Unprecedented demands for art photography created sky-high prices. Another contributing factor was the fact that photography was finally recognized as a work of art for which people could pay large sums of money.

The “boom” began in 2005. In an auction a price record for a photographic piece of art was beat in November in New York City. A 1989 photograph by Richard Prince went to Christie’s for USD 1,248,000, thus setting a new standard for the value of pieces of photography.

The world record was beat not by a photographer, but by an artist with a camera in his hands instead of a brush. Prince only did photography from time to time and has never reached the million mark for a photograph, which actually was never reached by any photographer in the world.

Prince was one of the five richest and famous artists in New York whose canvases for more than a decade held high prices in the market capital of world art. But Prince gave the credit for the glory the “Untitled Cowboy” received to Andy Warhol. He was the one who taught the world to look at the common commercial images and accept them as high art.

Prince’s commercial “cowboy” dashes on his commercial horse with no less of a commercial background of clouds into his commercial distance – the exact replica of the cowboy image imprinted in the minds of generations exposed to the Marlboro cigarette advertisements, as well as the expectation of how a cowboy must be according to the great American Wild West legends.

The person who obtained the American dream printed on a 12х16 inches (30x40 cm) photographic paper chose to remain anonymous. But this masterpiece is not alone. The second copy of the photograph is located in the Metropolitan Museum and is considered a photographic masterpiece.

It is worth mentioning, that five years earlier, a similar price that was paid for Prince’s art (US $ 1,250,000) was given to an art dealer names Alex Novak by an unknown buyer for Man Ray’s famous image “Glass Tears.”

This started the history of big money given for photographs. By the end of the first decade of the 21th century the prices given for photography have skyrocketed. Today’s rating for the most expensive photographs of the world suggests the sustainable demand for such art along with the steady growth in price.

Out of Sergey Melnikoff’s collection there are several pictures made in the 90s that are in the similar price scale.

The most famous one is called “The Land of the Kyrgyz,” it is officially the most expensive picture of Asia. In 2009 several Kyrgyz businessmen bought the picture for US $300,000 to present it as a gift to the president of Kyrgyzstan.

However, the record could belong to another photograph made by this American artist. A veil of secrecy blankets a deal made for a panoramic photograph portraying the surrounding area of a village called Chemolgan which was the birthplace of the president of Kazakhstan. According to the press, the panorama “The Land of My Childhood” dedicated to Nursultan Nazarbayev’s 75th birthday, was priced for more than one million US dollars.

Two other well-known photographs by Melnikoff are a portrait of a young girl called “The Girl from Kashmir” sold for US $300,000, and a picture of a woman from Ladakh called “The Witch of Ladakh” with an estimate of US $1 million.