The Beauty of Space

27 September 2023: rare photographic treasures of early NASA space travel from the Victor Martin-Malburet Collection in Dorotheum online auction

VIENNA, AUSTRIA  15 September 2023 – In the online auction The Beauty of Space – Iconic Photographs of Early NASA Missions, which ends on 27 September 2023, the Austrian auction house Dorotheum offers around 200 historic photographs of the US space agency NASA, dating from the beginning of manned spaceflight in the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. A selection of vintage prints collected over a period of 25 years by French space historian and art collector Victor Martin-Malburet can be purchased at auction – with attractive opening prices, starting at 100 euros, and without reserve.

The colour and black-and-white photographs were originally taken for scientific purposes and most of them were kept under lock and key. The auction includes important visual treasures from the Golden Age of astronautics, such as 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. An absolute rarity, with an estimate between 15,000 and 25,000 euros, 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.

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.

View online catalogue https://www.dorotheum.com/en/a/99412/