Auction of 2 rare photos brings in $1.6 million
Published October 14th, 2005
Dorothea Lange’s “White Angel Breadline,” which she shot in 1933 outside a San Francisco shelter. That photo, sold by the Museum of Science and Industry, was purchased for $822,400 by an unidentified buyer at Sotheby’s in New York.
The other photo sold is a nude portrait shot in 1920 by Highland Park native Edward Weston. “The Breast,” which fetched a price equal to the Lange piece, was sold by Hinsdale collectors LaVerne and Joseph Schieszler.
The sale figures, which Sotheby’s called an auction record, illustrate the explosion in prices of vintage photographs over the last three decades or so, said Denise Bethel, director of Sotheby’s photography department. Just 30 years ago, Sotheby’s auctioned off the Weston shot for a mere $2,700, she said.
