Rhein II is a photograph made by German visual artist Andreas Gursky in 1999. In 2011, a print was auctioned for $4.3 million (then £2.7m), making it the most expensive photograph ever sold.
The photograph was produced as the second (and largest) of a set of six depicting the River Rhine. In the image, the Rhine flows horizontally across the field of view, between green fields, under an overcast sky.
Extraneous details such as dog-walkers and a factory building were removed by the artist using digital editing. Justifying this manipulation of the image, Gursky said "Paradoxically, this view of the Rhine cannot be obtained in situ, a fictitious construction was required to provide an accurate image of a modern river."Gursky produced a very large chromogenic colour print of the photograph, mounted it onto acrylic glass, and then placed it in a frame. The image itself measures 73 by 143 inches (190 cm × 360 cm), while the frame measures 81 by 151 inches (210 cm × 380 cm).
The print was originally acquired by the Galerie Monika Sprüth in Cologne, and subsequently bought by an anonymous German collector.The collector sold the print by auction at Christie's New York on 8 November 2011, who estimated it would fetch a price of $2.5–3.5m.It actually sold for $4,338,500 (then about £2.7m); the identity of the buyer has not been revealed.
The work has been described by arts writer Florence Waters in The Daily Telegraph as a "vibrant, beautiful and memorable – I should say unforgettable – contemporary twist on [...] the romantic landscape" and by journalist Maev Kennedy in The Guardian as "a sludgy image of the grey Rhine under grey skies".
Source: Wikipedia