Leitz Auction
Leica R6 Sebastião Salgado *
Estimate
€28,000.00 – 32,000
€28,000.00 – 32,000
This item is subject to VAT at the statutory rate of the respective country of destination on hammer price and premium (full taxation), provided it remains in the EU
Shipping Category D
Shipping Information
Bidding for this Auction
starts on October 29th.
starts on October 29th.
serial number
1747647
Condition
B
Manufacture Year
1988
Product number
A03903
Sebastião Salgado (1944–2025) was one of the most influential documentary photographers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His major photographic projects, including Workers, Migrations, Genesis and Amazônia, have been exhibited and published throughout the world.
This Leica R6 no. 1747647 was personally used by Salgado during his celebrated photographic coverage of the burning oil fields of Kuwait in 1991. Together with the Leica Macro-Elmarit-R 2.8/60mm no. 3390243, it was used for a large part of the photographs from this extraordinary series, depicting the firefighters battling the oil well fires set by retreating Iraqi forces.
The Kuwait photographs were first published in The New York Times Magazine in 1991 and earned Salgado his second Leica Oskar Barnack Award the following year. The series later became an important part of his Workers project and was published as a dedicated monograph, Kuwait: A Desert on Fire, in 2016.
Following Salgado’s return from Kuwait, the camera was overhauled and repaired by Leica and subsequently exhibited at the Leica Gallery and Leica Museum in Solms. Its history and serial number were already documented when the camera was previously offered at auction in 2005.
Included with this exceptional ensemble are two original gelatin silver prints, measuring 40 × 50 cm, personally signed by Sebastião Salgado and bearing the photographer’s blind stamp, together with a copy of the limited edition book Workers, Artist’s Proof No. 7 of only 30 copies, containing numerous photographs made in Kuwait in 1991.
A remarkable and exceptionally well-documented camera directly connected with one of Sebastião Salgado’s most important photographic series and one of the defining bodies of documentary photography of the late twentieth century.
This Leica R6 no. 1747647 was personally used by Salgado during his celebrated photographic coverage of the burning oil fields of Kuwait in 1991. Together with the Leica Macro-Elmarit-R 2.8/60mm no. 3390243, it was used for a large part of the photographs from this extraordinary series, depicting the firefighters battling the oil well fires set by retreating Iraqi forces.
The Kuwait photographs were first published in The New York Times Magazine in 1991 and earned Salgado his second Leica Oskar Barnack Award the following year. The series later became an important part of his Workers project and was published as a dedicated monograph, Kuwait: A Desert on Fire, in 2016.
Following Salgado’s return from Kuwait, the camera was overhauled and repaired by Leica and subsequently exhibited at the Leica Gallery and Leica Museum in Solms. Its history and serial number were already documented when the camera was previously offered at auction in 2005.
Included with this exceptional ensemble are two original gelatin silver prints, measuring 40 × 50 cm, personally signed by Sebastião Salgado and bearing the photographer’s blind stamp, together with a copy of the limited edition book Workers, Artist’s Proof No. 7 of only 30 copies, containing numerous photographs made in Kuwait in 1991.
A remarkable and exceptionally well-documented camera directly connected with one of Sebastião Salgado’s most important photographic series and one of the defining bodies of documentary photography of the late twentieth century.