''The Pond—Moonlight'' (also exhibited as ''The Pond—Moonrise'') is a

pictorialist Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...

photograph by

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...

. The photograph was made in 1904 in

Mamaroneck, New York Mamaroneck ( ) is a town in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 31,758 at the 2020 United States census over 29,156 at the 2010 census. There are two villages contained within the town: Larchmont and the Village of M ...

, near the home of his friend art critic Charles Caffin. The photograph features a forest across a pond, with part of the moon appearing over the horizon in a gap in the trees. ''The Pond—Moonlight'' is an early photograph created by manually applying light-sensitive gums, giving the final print more than one color. Only three known versions of ''The Pond—Moonlight'' are still in existence and, as a result of the hand-layering of the gums, each is unique. One version was given by Steichen to the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

and remains in its collection under the title ''Moonrise, Mamaroneck, New York''. A second version was in the personal collection of Alfred Stieglitz, which was donated to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in 1933. This had been reproduced in Stieglitz's photography journal ''

Camera Work ''Camera Work'' was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It presented high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world, with the goal to establish photography as a ...

'', No. 14. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired a duplicate when it bought the Gilman Paper Company collection, and decided to auction it. In February 2006, this print of the photograph sold for US$2.9 million, at the time, the highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction. The photograph was bought by gallerist Peter MacGill on behalf of a private buyer. This auction is presented in the part 6 of the BBC documentary ''The Genius of Photography''. The extraordinary sale price of the print is, in part, attributable to its one-of-a-kind character and to its rarity.

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