A print of Andreas Gursky's "Rhein II" broke records with its $4.33 million price tag at a Chrtitie's auction this past November, making it the most expensive photo ever sold. Gursky's had previously claimed the title of highest-priced photo with his diptych, "99 Cent Store"—purchased for $3.35 million in 2006. For a brief six months, Gursky lost his place when Cindy Sherman's self portrait, sold for $3.89 million in May 2011...

Late last year, a print by photographer Andreas Gursky, "99 Cent II Diptychon (2001)," sold for $2.48 million at auction, the second-highest price ever paid for a photograph and the highest price for the work of a living photographer. The record, set last February for a 1904 work by Edward Steichen, was $2.9 million.

The Gursky that sold at Phillips de Pury & Co. in November 2006 is a 22-foot-wide chromogenic color diptych, one of an edition of six, that provides an overhead view of a colorful, crowded...