No one knows for sure what the Metropolitan Museum of Art paid to acquire the Gilman Collection of photographs—an acquisition which put the Met on the map as a major photography source—but educated estimates go as high as $100 million.

As a result of the acquisition, the Met wound up owning two prints of the same image for certain works, and it recently decided to sell its duplicates at Sotheby’s on Feb. 14 and 15. The list of photographers whose work was for sale read like a Who’s Who of modern photography.

“If the sale doesn’t do well,” said art consultant Anne Horton before the event, “then we are really in trouble.” She need not have worried.

The first session made $11,472,000, against a pre-sale estimate of $4-6 million for the entire 113 lots. The session the next morning brought the total to just under $15 million.

Perhaps the biggest news from the sale was the new world record set by a photograph at auction: the $2,928,000 paid for Edward Steichen’s The Pond—Moonlight (the sale also shattered, of course, the previous high for Steichen: $402,412).

New auction price records were set for many other artists as well, including Alfred Stieglitz ($1,472,000 vs. $420,000); Margrethe Mather ($228,000 vs. $207,500); and Margaret Bourke-White ($352,000 vs. $92,000). All of the lots were sold, with 91 percent going over the high estimate. The average lot price was $132,592.

“We knew it would do very well,” said New York-dealer Howard Greenberg, who was the underbidder on many of the major lots, “but I was astonished nonetheless.”

Greenberg underbid San Francisco-dealer Jeffrey Fraenkel on two Stieglitz images, including Georgia O’Keeffe (Nude) that sold for $1,360,000 (est: $300-500,000) [lot #13], which, Greenberg said, he was “very surprised” not to get.

Greenberg added, “I was bidding for a museum on lot #12 [Stieglitz’s Braque-Picasso Exhibition] and when the museum told me how high they would go, I said that they wouldn’t have to spend half as much to get it.” But the image soared to $262,000 (est: $50-70,000) and went to Fraenkel.

What does a sale like this mean for the photography market? “It certainly gives the field an upwards momentum,” says Greenberg. “It’s amazing how far we have come, and the market is moving very fast.”

While dealers do not rush back to their galleries to change their prices immediately, a sale such as this inevitably makes their prices seem low. “I was happy with them a week ago,” says Greenberg, “but now I’m not so sure.”

Lalique Collection at Christie’s New York
Christie’s sold a collection of René Lalique glass belonging to Tsuyoshi Kajikawa, a Japanese dealer from Kyoto on Feb. 10. The auction house held a stand-alone sale, rather than including the collection in a 20th-century decorative works of art auction, and the gambit paid off.

The Lalique market took a big hit in 1991, when the Japanese dropped out of the market, but it has been slowly recovering. “This sale was a great test,” says Barbara Deisroth, a New York-based private dealer and art consultant. “It showed a renewed interest in Lalique.”

The sale did incredibly well, with 101 of the 118 lots offered finding buyers for a total of $1,667,440—right on the pre-sale estimate. All of the major pieces found buyers.

The star piece was Grenouilles et Nénufars (Frogs and Lily Pads) [lot #94], a molded- and applied-glass vase, which made $318,400 (est: $300-400,000).

Two other top lots sold below their pre-sale estimates: Trois Paons (Three Peacocks) [lot #29], a clear- and frosted-glass centerpiece (est: $150-180,000); and Branches de Laiteron (Branches of Milkweed), a cire perdue glass vase [lot #68] (est: $220-280,000): Each sold for $120,000.

Lots that did especially well included a Terpsichore glass vase [lot #63] that brought $54,000 (est: $20-30,000); a Bacchantes vase [lot #67] that fetched $66,000 (est: $25-35,000); and La Jour et La Nuit, a gray-glass clock [lot #103] that brought $54,000 (est: $30-50,000).

Jeni Sandberg, Christie’s Lalique expert, says that the sale missed by less than $100,000 being the highest-grossing Lalique sale ever. “There was bidding interest from all over the world,” she says, adding that the Japanese are back in. There were even a few Russian bidders. “We saw new collectors,” says Sandberg, “and for Lalique, that’s wonderful.”