NEW YORK, April 10 (Reuters) - 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.
 

An Avedon portrait of 1950s and 1960s French screen siren
Brigitte Bardot sold for $181,000. It had been expected to
garner between $80,000 and $120,000.