|
Carla and the dinosaur at Christies |
|
|
|
Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
The skeleton of a triceratops
has been sold by the Paris
branch of Christies the
auctioneers for €592,250.
The 7.5-metre herbivore
originally failed to fetch the
auction reserve of €500,000.
It is to return to its native
North America, as it was
later sold on to a US bidder.
Bidders at Christies of
New York, on the other hand,
needed no urging to match
the reserve of €4,000 for a
photograph of the naked
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The
picture was taken 15 years
ago by Michel Comte and
showed the subject standing
facing the camera with
her hands covering her
intimité, in the style of
Georges Seurat’s painting
‘Les poseuses’.
The bidding started at
€100,000 and was finally
knocked down to €96,000 by
an anonymous Chinese
purchaser. Christies justified
the sale by saying that Carla
Bruni-Sarkozy was “one of
the most beautiful women in
the world”. Gert Elfering,
who sold the photo, is one of
the world’s leading
collectors of photographs.
He is donating the proceeds
of the sale to charity.
|
