A nude portrait of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife Carla Bruni will go under the hammer in New York next month, according to auctioneers Christie’s.

The 13 x 10 1/8 inch gelatin silver black and white photograph was taken in 1993, when Bruni was one of the world’s top fashion models, and is being sold by art collector Gert Elfering.

It is expected to fetch $3,000 to $4,000 when it is sold in New York on April 10, according to the Christie’s web site.

A Francis Bacon painting depicting a man attacked by vultures may fetch a record $70 million when it is auctioned in New York in May, Sotheby’s said.

Bacon’s 1976 triptych, painted while he was living in Paris, is being sold by a European collector who has owned it for more than 30 years, the auction house said in a statement today.

Sotheby’s set the current record for a work by Bacon in May 2007, when “Study from Innocent X, 1962,” sold in New York for $52.7 million.

A wooden sculpture of the supreme Buddha sold for more than 14.3 million dollars in New York on Tuesday, far exceeding pre-sale estimates and setting a new record for a work of Japanese art.

The 800-year-old depiction of the Dainichi Nyorai, attributed to the sculptor Unkei, was bought by the Japanese department store chain Mitsukoshi, shattering the pre-sale estimates for the work of 1.5 to 2.5 million dollars.

The record price “is a testament to the extreme importance and beauty of this supreme Buddha, and elevates Japanese art to a new record level,” said Katsura Yamaguchi, Christie’s director of Japanese and Korean Art.

A triceratops skeleton is expected to fetch 500,000 euros at an upcoming Christie’s auction in Paris, where giant shark teeth and a sabre-toothed tiger skull are also up for bids.

The skeleton of the three-horned dinosaur, from a private European collection, is the highlight of the April 16 auction. It will mark the first time that such a dinosaur specimen goes up for public sale since a T-Rex called “Sue” was sold in New York in October 1997.

The four-legged triceratops, which dates back between 65 and 67 million years, measures 7.5 metres in length and bears a large bony frill and three horns.