“175 Masterworks To Celebrate 175 Years of Photography: Property from Joy of Giving Something Foundation" auction held at Sotheby's New York on December 11th and 12th, broke the world record for a photography auction. The sale was drawn from a collection gathered by the late American financier Howard Stein. The auction grossed the grand sum of $21,325,063, or £13,591,629 - beating its presale estimate of $13–20 million, or £8.2 - £12.7 million. The sale greatly surpassed the previous record, set in 2006 by a Sotheby's sale of photographs from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which reached the total of $15 million, or £9.5 million.
The auction also set a number of artist's records. The top lot, an impressionistic view of Venice by Alvin Langdon Coburn ("Shadows and Reflections, Venice," 1905) fetched the staggering sum of $965,000, or £614,726.