A photograph of a nude Carla Bruni Sarkozy sells for $91,000 (USD). The
image of France's first lady taken in 1993 fetches a price far exceeding the
highest estimate of $4,000 (USD).

 NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (APRIL 10, 2008) REUTERS-

 A nude portrait of French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy,
standing in a pigeon-toed pose and covering her modesty with her hands, sold
for $91,000 (USD), more than 20 times its expected price, on Thursday (April
10) in New York.
    A buyer for a Chinese art collector bought the black and white image,
taken by photographer Michel Comte in 1993 during Bruni's modeling days. The
sale of the photo by Christie's has attracted attention since Bruni married
French President Nicolas Sarkozy in February.
    The photo had been expected to fetch between $3,000 and $4,000 (USD).
It was auctioned as part of a sale of 140 photos from German collector Gert
Elfering, which also features work by Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Helmut
Newton and Peter Beard.
    Josh Holdeman, Christie's Senior Vice President of Photographs, said
the winning bid far exceeded expectations.
    "We all kind of were trying to imagine this morning what it would
go for and we all kind of had, I think, a number in our head, but this far
exceeded what anyone kind of guessed, so it was very pleasant surprise,"
he said.
    The Bruni photo received a variety of phone, Internet and room bids,
including from Heiko Roloff, a bidder in the room representing on-line
magazine, bilde.de, whose bid fell short.
    "I was disappointed that I was outbid, because I would have bought
the photo as a gift for the French President. That would have been a very nice
gesture and also a nice story," he said after the auction.
    Italian-born supermodel-turned-singer Bruni, married Sarkozy less than
3 months after meeting the French premier. Sarkozy saw his popularity plummet
in France during his whirlwind romance with the former model.