A sludgy image of the grey Rhine under grey skies, by the German artist Andreas Gursky, has sold for $4.3m (£2.7m) at a Christie's auction in New York, setting a new world record for a photograph.

The desolate featureless landscape shown in Rhine II is no accident: Gursky explained in an interview that it is his favourite picture: "It says a lot using the most minimal means … for me it is an allegorical picture about the meaning of life and how things are."

In fact the artist carefully digitally removed any intrusive features – dog walkers, cyclists, a factory building – until it was bleak enough to satisfy him.

Christie's described it as "a dramatic and profound reflection on human existence and our relationship to nature on the cusp of the 21st century".

The buyer of the huge glass-mounted 350cm x 200cm (80in x 140in) print is unknown, but other Gursky works hang in the collections of major museums including Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The previous record for a photograph was paid for a 1981 print by the American Cindy Sherman, who is also the subject of all her own works.

Gursky's prices have steadily been climbing at auction for the past decade: a diptych, 99 cent II, sold for £1.7m at a 2007 Sotheby's auction.