【Research Center for the Legal System of Intellectual Property】

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55 Years since “The Kiss at City Hall”

RA Akiko Ogawa

In 1950, Robert Doisneau, a photographer, took a series of pictures of young lovers in Paris for Life magazine. “The Kiss at City Hall” was one of the pictures. Some who saw the picture claimed to be the couple of the photo, but Doisneau did not reveal who the models were.... until the time when a lawsuit was filed against him.

Mr. and Mrs. Lavergne said the picture was unwittingly taken of them as the subject of the image. Then, a woman, Francoise Bornet claimed that she was asked to pose by Doisneau when she had been with her boyfriend in a cafe. In 1993, two different lawsuits were filed for a share of the sales of the image which was printed as a poster in 1986 and sold 410,000 copies in six years afterward.

The Lavergnes demanded compensation for damages for invasion of privacy from the photo unwittingly taken in addition to a monetary share of the sales. Francoise Bornet, however, did not claim an invasion of privacy as she insisted she had posed for the picture. The court in the end admitted Bornet was the model, but rejected her claims, saying that the photo could not offer positive proof of identification of her face because of the angle and the effect as if they were passers-by. The court also denied the Lavergnes’ claims.

Eleven years later, Francoise Bornet announced that she put up her original print, sent to her by Doisneau with his autograph, for auction in Paris. ”La photo est posee, mais le baiser est vrai.” The 75-year-old parisienne made quite a charming remark, which signifies, “The photo was posed, but the kiss was real.”

On April 25, 2005, it was hammered down at 155,000euro, exceeding overwhelmingly her expectations. To those interested, the image is available at http://www.artcurial.com/communique/presse_photo03.html.