NEW YORK, NY.- Eli Wilner & Company has been selected to provide frames for 16 of the most important photographs to be included in Sotheby's upcoming sale 175 Masterworks To Celebrate 175 Years Of Photography: Property from Joy of Giving Something Foundation. The pre-sale estimate of $13,000,000 - 20,000,000 is the highest ever for a photographs auction. Highlights of the sale, including 12 of the Eli Wilner frames, were shown in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Paris prior to the full exhibition in New York, which began on December 4th.

Framing high value photographs presents both technical and aesthetic challenges. These artworks often bear very narrow ‘exhibition’ frames that are frequently made cheaply with inferior construction techniques and poor finishes and usually need to be replaced. Proper treatment of a photograph includes using UV-filtering, shatter-resistant glass, which often requires that interior steel supports be added to the frame, as well as spacers to provide a gap between the artwork and the glass.

The aesthetic considerations in re-framing important photographs includes referencing the artist's own collecting tastes and potential influences from the artist's teachers and peers. The framing scholarship of the Wilner team has allowed them to be involved in the framing of many of the most important works of art in American history, including Washington Crossing the Delaware at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, numerous artworks in The White House collection, Custer's Last Flag, a rare artifact of the Battle of Little Big Horn, four monumental landscapes by Thomas Moran in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, many other major works of American and European art in dozens of museums across the United States.

The auction will take place at Sotheby's New York on December 11th and 12th, 2014, and all proceeds go to the designated foundation.

To read more about the sale, click here: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2014/175-masterworks-n09275.html