Naked Ambition

Your art collection is coming along pretty well, but you can always use a little more black and white photography. (And maybe a little more skin.)

Tomorrow, Christie's starts unloading German connoisseur Gert Elfering's eye-popping collection of photographs of nude supermodels. The 135 pics span 20 years, so we thought to give you a hand finding your way through it all. Allow us to help focus your auction strategy:

• Janet Jackson's famous hand-assisted Rolling Stone cover, shot by Patrick Demarchelier in Miami in 1993. It's more pop culture history than art, so Christie's only pegs it at $6,000-$9,000. Just hope Timberlake doesn't show...
   
• Irving Penn's silver-hued portrait of a tousled and nude Gisele, from the good old days ('99) before her career-making role in Taxi. Christie's is guessing $30,000, but you'll probably have competition...
   
• Richard Avedon's provocative still of a breast-baring Lauren Hutton on Great Exuma island in the Bahamas circa 1968. This one has improved with age, so you'd better steel yourself for a price tag upwards of $50,000. Then again, when you're done with it, you can always auction it off...

There's also revealing peeks at Kate Moss, Twiggy, Christy Turlington, Carla Bruni, Naomi Campbell, Rita Hayworth and Brigitte Bardot, along with less stirring shots of Picasso, Billie Holiday, Jack Nicholson, Lennon & McCartney and... a bunch of grain elevators.

And if you think the $30K estimate is steep even for a naked Gisele, think of it this way: she's going to cost Brady a lot more than that in the long run.