Last Updated on: 22nd November 2023, 10:39 am
Dorotheum, the Austrian auction house, is offering a selection of historic photographs of the US space agency NASA in an online auction named ‘The Beauty of Space – Iconic Photographs of Early NASA Missions’. The auction, which ends on 27 September 2023, contains around 200 prints, collected over a quarter of a century, by French space historian and art collector Victor Martin-Malburet.
The photographs, taken for scientific purposes, span from the beginning of manned spaceflight in the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. Attractive opening prices start at 100 euros, with no reserve.
Amongst the collection are the first space selfie, the first human-taken photograph of the Planet Earth, and the first human-taken photograph of the surface of another world. The absolute rarity of the collection is the only photograph of the first man on the Moon (Neil Armstrong) taken by astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first lunar landing of the APOLLO 11 mission in July 1969, with an estimate between 15,000 and 25,000 euros.
Parts of the Martin-Malburet Collection have already been exhibited in renowned museums worldwide, including the Grand Palais in Paris, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg and the Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark.
Viewers can explore the unique collection online at the Dorotheum auction catalogue.
