The top lot in today’s auction of Fine Photographs & Photobooks was also the top lot ever sold at Swann Galleries. A set of Edward S. Curtis’s magnum opus, The North American Indian, complete with 20 text volumes and 20 folios, brought $1.44 million dollars–more than any other single lot sold at Swann in its 70 year history.

Prices for other early photographs were also strong. A multi-panel panorama image of lower Manhattan from 1876, showing a portion of the Brooklyn Bridge still under construction, brought $96,000 and an album of cyanotypes of Colorado sold for $56,000.