Kiss photo sells for more than $200,000

A French woman appearing in a classic 1950 photograph of a couple kissing outside Paris city hall has sold her original print for more than $200,000.

The photo sold for $200,626 at a Paris auction Monday, seven times the amount the auction house had hoped to get for the work of photographer Robert Doisneau, the London Times reported Tuesday.

The photograph was put up for sale by Françoise Bornet, 78, who posed for the picture that became known as Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville for Doisneau with a fellow drama student who was then her boyfriend.

She sold it to raise funds for her husband to open a film production company.

The price was paid by a Swiss collector who bid by phone, the Times reported.

Doisneau took the picture on the Rue de Rivoli, by the City Hall, as part of a series on Paris for Life magazine.

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