The naked picture of France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy went under the hammer for more than 20 times its expected price at Christie's auction house.
The black-and white photo was taken by the photographer Michel Comte in 1993 at time when Carla worked as a model.
The picture where Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is posing with her hands crossed at waist height to cover her modesty imitates one of the famous pictures made by an artist 100 years before the picture of Carla was taken. Initially it was destined to Anti-AIDS social ad.
They expected to sell the picture that attracted attention since Carla married the president of France Nicolas Sarkozy for 3,000-4,000 dollars. But the lot was finally sold for 91,000 dollars. It was bought by a buyer for a Chinese art collector.
They also put up for auction about 140 pictures of famous models such as Kate Moss and Gisele Bundhen from one of the biggest 20th century photo collectors Gert Elfering. The German collector often puts up his lots for auctions and gets millions of dollars.
He expected to get about 3 million dollars from the latest collection but the lots fetched 4.2 million dollars.
The Italian celebrity Carla Bruni also appeared naked in the pages of last month's GQ magazine.
The famous photo of nude Carla was released hours before the newlywed couple made their first state visit to Britain. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his new wife were said to be 'angry and upset' by the incident.
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