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A nude portrait of France's First Lady
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is seen in this undated handout photo from Christie's
Auction House.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Photo
Gallery>>> |
BEIJING, April 12 -- A nude photo of French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy,
standing in a pigeon-toed pose and covering her modesty with her hands, was sold
on Thursday in New York for $91,000, more than 20 times its expected price.
A buyer for a Chinese art collector bought the black-and-white image, taken
by photographer Michel Comte in 1993 during her modeling days, Christie's
auction house said.
The sale of the photo 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. 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.
"Naked woman" costs
Meanwhile, a painting by British artist Lucian Freud will likely fetch the
highest ever auction price for a work by a living artist, Christie's auction
house said on Friday.
The life-size portrait of a large naked woman, called "Benefits Supervisor
Sleeping," will be sold in New York on May 13.
Pilar Ordovas, head of contemporary art at Christie's in London, said the
painting is coveted because it is the first from a series of Freud's paintings
from the 1990s that have never been previously available on the open market.
The 1995 painting depicts Freud's subject Sue Tilley lying asleep on a worn
out sofa, Christie's said.
Auctioneers estimate the British artist's work will fetch between $25-35
million. That would top the current record, set in November by Jeff Koons'
"Hanging Heart" sculpture, which sold for $23.6 million.
Freud, 85, the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, was introduced to
the model, nicknamed "Big Sue," by the Australian performance artist Leigh
Bowery, Christie's said.
(Source: China Daily/Agencies)
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