An image by Richard Prince has beaten the record for a photograph sold at auction, selling for $3.4 million at Sotheby's in New York. The previous record had been held by Andreas Gursky for a diptych print that sold for $3.3 million at Sotheby's in London.
The untitled work comes from Prince's "Marlboro Man" series, in which the artist had captured images of cowboys from Marlboro cigarette ads. The image, one of two editions, measures 100 by 66 inches.
Prince was also the first photographer to break the $1 million barrier for a single photo, auctioning another cowboy image from the same series for $1.2 million at Christie's New York in 2005.
Photo caption: Richard Prince's photo, "Untitled (Cowboy)," which had an estimated value of $1.5 million to $2 million, recently sold for $3.4 million at Sotheby's.