(REUTERS) - A never before seen press photo of an apparently teenaged Princess Diana that a London tabloid deemed too hot to publish has sold at auction in the United States for more than $18,000.

The black-and-white image with "not to be published" written on it by someone at the British newspaper, shows Diana from the dawn of the 1980s, possibly in a ski chalet, smiling at the camera as she lies comfortably in the lap of a like-aged but unidentified young man reading a book.

The auction house RR Auctions, based in Amherst, New Hampshire, said the photo dated February 26, 1981 comes from the private Caren Archive, which acquired it seven years ago when it bought out the photo library of Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper. The auction house sold it to an unnamed investor from California for $18,306.

Diana died in a Paris car crash in August 1997, a year after her divorce from Charles. She was 36.

(Video Attributed By REUTERS)