(Photo: Courtesy of Christie's Images Ltd 2007)

6. Edward Steichen
Flatiron Building, Evening, 1905. Printed circa 1960; edition unknown.

Estimate: $40,000 to $60,000. Steichen is the Picasso of photographers—the dominant early modernist. (He eventually became director of photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1947.) And his impressionistic pictures of turn-of-the-century New York are among his most valued.

Market details: This is a later print of an iconic image. A vintage print—meaning one made close to the time the image was shot—could conceivably approach $1 million. “The later the image gets printed, the more it begins to lose its attachment to the time,” says the London collector (and James Bond producer) Michael Wilson. “Collectors like to feel that the image has not lost its context in history.” (Contemporary photographs go the opposite way: As an edition sells and buzz builds, the remaining prints with later numbers grow more expensive.)

Prospects: Few prints of this Steichen exist, vintage or more recent. “There’s no doubt it will get significant interest,” says Silverstein.

Related:

• Archive: “Auctions”
• Articles by Carly Berwick
• Table of Contents: Feb 12, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!