Photographer Bert Stern's Marilyn Monroe: The Last Sitting, a portfolio of shots taken of the star shortly before her death, will lead at Freeman's Auctioneers in Philadelphia on September 10.
 Bert Stern recently said that the shoot ended up being more nude than he had intended |
First published in 1982, the limited edition portfolio contains 10 of the 2,500+ images that Stern took of Monroe while on assignment for Vogue magazine in June 1962. It is valued at $10,000-15,000.
News of the sale comes on the anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death on August 5, 1962.
The famous shoot took place at Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Stern and Monroe had become good friends over the course of their careers, and this is reflected in Monroe's obviously relaxed demeanour.
Each of the 10 hazy and dreamlike photographs was taken on the first day of the three-day shoot, before the arrival of Vogue editors, make-up artist and wardrobe assistants.
It is common to find single images from the shoot at auction, though the complete set is rare. The collection is particularly sought after for its array of nudes of Marilyn:
"I wasn't out to do nudes, I was out to do pictures. But I didn't know about clothes, I didn't see her in clothes. I saw her with jewellery, or something to cover her a little bit. But it ended up to be more nude than I meant," Stern commented in the 2010 documentary Bert Stern: Original Madman:
Stern died on June 26.
Last month Profiles in History sold Milton Greene's famed Marilyn Monroe photographs, with 469 transparencies from 1957's The Prince and the Showgirl making $35,000.
View our collection of Marilyn Monroe-signed memorabilia, which includes autographed newspaper clippings, legal documents and her rare high school class photo.
