Reporting by Karen Brettell and Brendan McDermid; Editing by Michelle Nichols and Xavier Briand
(gg)

NEW YORK (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.

__________________
Trees give peace to the souls of men * Nora Waln

The forest would be very quiet if no other birds sang than those who sing the best * Henry van Dyke

some fairly sordid tales, rambles, and anecdotes
Hypothetically Speaking * Something More * Cammy Interrupted * An Experimental Vacation * Masked * so..damn..hot * Thank You * My toy, his idea * no.19 Maple Lane * I Have A Surprise For You * Yesterday * In a Quiet Kitchen * help me decide * untitled prose * more untitled prose

That's why I saved all of my autographed naked pictures of Aqua.

__________________
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.