The steely expression that she went on to perfect while en route to becoming one of the world’s biggest stars, amassing an estimated fortune of $500million, is already present.
Aged 18, in late 1977, a University of Michigan dance student named Madonna Louise Ciccone posed nude at $10 an hour for photographer Herman Kulkens - only for the pictures to surface less than 10 years later after she became a household name.
Unseen: Queen of Pop Madonna poses for this
never-seen-before photo - clad in nothing but a men's shirt and tie -
for pictures that were found in a haul belonging to late Penthouse owner
Bob Guccione
Who's that girl? A young, nude Madonna brushes the hair of an unknown woman
Erotic: Years before she would publish her
steamy book, Sex, Madonna posed for nude photos - including one where
she donned nothing but a wide-brimmed hat
In another never-seen before picture, now up for auction, superstar Madonna, now 55, is nude as she brushes a woman's hair.
While another shot shows her standing naked with her back to the camera with just a wide-brimmed hat on her head - and a blanket draped around her legs.
And with a smile on her face, the young girl poses topless for Kulkens for pictures that would be at the center of a legal battle in 1985 when both Penthouse and Playboy attempted to print them.
The sensational images are among the haul left behind by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione who died of cancer aged 79 in October 2010, and now owned by Wall Street trader turned entrepreneur and financier Jeremy Frommer who bought Guccione's entire estate from his creditor last year.
Long-lost images of Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Bill Clinton's mistress Gennifer Flowers and Lauren Hutton among others were found among the papers, photos, slides and letters belonging to Guccione that Jeremy and associates have carefully spent hours sifting through.
For Madonna, the publication of the nude photos would not have come a shock. She posed naked for three photographers between 1978 and 1980.
Teenager: Madonna was just 18 in 1977 when she
posed nude for photographer Herman Kulkens. The pictures would be
published less than 10 years later when she became a star
Before she was famous: Madonna met photographer Herman Kulkens in an art class in Ann Arbor, Michigan
For Kulkens, he once recalled how he was impressed by the girl he met in a sculpture class at Art World, a school in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Her face, he said, 'reminded me of Cleopatra'.
At the time, Kulkens and his photographer wife Susan got a signed release from Madonna that granted them rights to 'sell or use the photos as they saw fit' in return for a small amount of money.
However, the Kulkens went on to sue Guccione for $2million in 1985 as well as attempting to block publication - just as Madonna's star was on the ascendent and she had released some of her biggest hits, Holiday, Like A Virgin and Into the Groove and was embarking on her Like a Virgin tour - claiming they had never signed a binding agreement and wanting to publish with Playboy.
In the end, pictures from the set were published in both Playboy and Penthouse - with Guccione defending himself by claiming he had a signed agreement from the Kulkens, as Playboy raced to the newstands and breathlessly proclaimed it had published first.
Madonna's long-time publicist Liz Rosenberg, who still works with Madonna to this day, said of the furore: 'Madonna has acknowledged in past interviews that she did pose nude for art classes'' when she was a model.
'Her feeling is she's never done anything she's ashamed of.''
Before she was famous: Fresh-faced and bearing a
striking resemblance to her teenage daughter Lola, Madonna poses
topless before taking the world by storm
Still causing a commotion: Madonna, now 55, at
the opening of a branch of her gym club 'Hard Candy Fitness' in Berlin,
Germany, on October 17
Jeremy Frommer is now putting the Madonna images up for auction on November 9 on Guccionecollection.com and told MailOnline: 'We will also be selling 21 35mm slides, only six have ever been published...the craziest thing is that we still don't know who the mystery girl whose hair Madonna's playing with is.
Jeremy also revealed how he has been turned away from top auction houses he labels as 'stodgy' who have refused to sell many of the erotic images from Guiccione's estate.
Broke: Although the Penthouse founder made billions from his erotic empire, he died penniless in October 2010
He said: 'Auction houses have been more than willing to auction off Hugh Hefner's memorabilia and to auction off Jeff Koons artwork, yet every single auction house that we approached was afraid and fearful and while the reception we originally got from the people directly involved in the business was general excitement over the material, the stodgy older auction house elite refused to give Bob Guccione the credit he deserves. So I have decided to do it myself.'
Among the images going up for auction are the original pictures of a blonde woman printed in an article in Penthouse in 1980 which claimed the photos - uncovered by a Swedish photographer - were of a young Marilyn Monroe in an untitled, silent six-minutes porn film.
However, no Monroe biographer has ever found any evidence that the iconic actress ever filmed such a movie - with the women pictured bearing little resemblance to the Hollywood actress.
Despite this, Penthouse in its article insisted it was her, writing; 'Here, in grainy celluloid, may well be the still unglamorized sex goddess the public never knew, before plastic surgeons, stylists, and designers transformed her into the mythical Marilyn Monroe.
'It’s a thought to fire the imagination of every man who ever dreamed of her, a fantasy come to fruition.'
Is this Marilyn? These pictures of an
unidentified woman are rumoured to be of a young Marilyn Monroe - but
this has never been proven. They were found in the haul belonging to Bob
Guccione
Mystery: According to Penthouse, a Swedish
photographer had uncovered a previously unknown film appearance by a
young Marilyn Monroe - but it has never been proved to the tragic
Hollywood star
Undated pictures of boxing champion Muhmmed Ali, taken while on an visit to the Middle East, will also be auctioned, as well as oil paintings by Guccione.
Indeed, growing up, Guccione only started Penthouse because he thought it could subsidize his art career.
Instead, it made him one of the richest men in the world and in 2004, the New York Post estimated he had earned $4billion since Penthouse was launched in 1965.
However, by the time of his death, Guccione was bankrupt, penniless from a string of bad investments and risky ventures. And Jeremy said: 'I want to show the world both the brilliance and erotic beauty of the eye of Bob Guccione.'
A documentary on Guccione will be shown on the Epix channel on November 8
To look at the Guccione collection up for auction, go to: http://guccionecollection.com/
I am the greatest: Muhammed Ali during a trip to
the Middle East, just one of a myriad of images discovered in Bob
Guccione's collection and up for auction
Convert: Muhammed Ali famously converted to the
Isllamic faith - attending his first Nation of Islam meeting in 1961 and
converting to Sunni Islam in 1975
Crowds: In another unseen photo, Muhammed Ali is surrounded by fans on a visit to the Middle East
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