Paris - French actress Eva Ionesco on Monday took her mother to court over nude photographs taken of her as a child and widely published, and is now claiming $254 000 in damages.
The photographs of Ionesco were taken in the 1970s between the ages of four and 12 by her photographer mother Irina. They were explicit and Ionesco, who is evoking a "stolen childhood", also wants them returned to her.
Ionesco became the youngest model to appear nude in Playboy when she featured aged 11 in an October 1976 edition. Her photographs, as a child, were also published in Penthouse.
Her lawyer Jacques-Georges Bitoun told the court that the 1970s "were an era when paedophile networks still had a lot of influence".
'Disguised prostitute'
"How can one open the legs of a four-year-old girl and take a snap?" he said.
"If art is photographing a child in these positions, I understand nothing of art," he said, adding: "The child is never presented as a child" but as a "disguised prostitute".
Irina Ionesco's lawyer Rene-Jean Ullmann argued that the 1970s were a "more permissive" time and spoke of the actress's alleged "hatred for her mother".
The verdict is due on 17 December.
