A PHOTOGRAPH described as the world's first selfie sold for £70,000 at auction in Harrogate yesterday.

The image, by pioneering early photographer Oscar Rjelander, is in an album that sold for seven times its estimate at Morphets auctioneers.

Called Oscar Rejlander his self, it is part of a leather bound album of 70 albumen prints by the artist - known as the father of art photography.

Among the sitters are Rejlander's wife, Hallam Tennyson - son of poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, and Rejlander himself - predating the modern day Twitter selfie phenomenon by more than 150 years.

Morphets director Liz Pepper-Darling said: "The vendor brought the album into the office, and asked for it to be sold with a reserve of £100. We quickly realised it was quite an important album of early photographs, when the art was really in its infancy."

The album attracted interest from across the world, and eventually sold to a foreign institution, Ms Pepper-Darling said.

"The vendor was in the room at the time, and had a very big smile on his face."

Rjelander, who started out as a portrait painter before moving into the photography, became well known for his photomontage print The Two Ways of Life - made up of 32 negatives - which caused a scandal because of the partially nude subjects, although respectability came again when Queen Victoria bought a copy of the print for Prince Albert.

Rejlander sold the album of 70 prints to 19th century naval hydrographer Captain George Browning, and it was passed down through the family to yesterday's vendor, who the auctioneers said had no inkling of its significance.

Although individual prints have come to market in the past, the album is thought to be the first body of work by Rjelander ever sold in public.