The world's most expensive photographs - in pictures

The Rhine river by German artist Andreas Gursky. Titled Rhein II, the chromogenic colour print face-mounted to acrylic glass was sold for $4.3m (£2.7m) at Christie's in New York, setting a record for a photograph sold at auction Photograph: Andreas Gursky/supplied by AP

Centerfolds/Horizontals by American artist Cindy Sherman at the Kunsthaus exhibition hall in Bregenz, Austria. Untitled #96 (1981) - top row, second left - sold for $3.9m at auction at Christie's in 2011 Photograph: Regina Kuehne/AP

Andreas Gursky's 99 Cent II Diptychon (2001) sold for $3,346,456 in 2007 Photograph: Tom Starkweather/Getty

Edward Steichen's The Pond-Moonlight (1904) sold for $2,928,000 in 2006 Photograph: Edward Steichen/supplied by AP

Unknown photographer, Billy the Kid (1879–80) sold for $2,300,000, June 2011 Photograph: Old West Show and Auction/supplied by AP

Dmitry Medvedev, Kremlin of Tobolsk (2009), sold for $1,750,000 in January 2010 Photograph: Dmitry Lovetsky/AP

Edward Weston's Nautilus (1927) sold for for $1,082,500 in 2010 Photograph: Edward Weston/supplied by AP

Alfred Stieglitz's Georgia O'Keeffe (Hands) (1919) sold for $1,470,000 in 2006 Photograph: Alfred Stieglitz/supplied by AP

Richard Avedon's photo Dovima with Elephants (1955) sold for $1,151,976 in 2010 Photograph: Richard Avedon/supplied by AP

Gustave Le Gray's The Great Wave, Sete (1857) sold for $8,38,000 in 1999 Photograph: Gustave le Gray/George Eastman House/Getty

Eugène Atget's Joueur d'Orgue (1898-1899) sold for $6,86,500 in 2010 Photograph: Eugène Atget/Bettmann/CORBIS

Ansel Adams, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1948) sold for $609,600 in 2006 Photograph: Joe Munroe/Getty