‘Unedited’ photos of Cindy Crawford, 49, have surfaced - and they are beautiful.

An unretouched image of supermodel Cindy Crawford has gone viral.

The image shows Cindy, now 49, wearing some lingerie. She was 47 years old when the photograph was first taken.

Given the utterly mad world we currently live in where even celebrity babies are photoshopped (Christina Aguilera’s, anyone?), an unretouched photograph of a woman that age is somewhat (read: extremely) rare. Take a look:

Marie Claire magazine confirmed the leaked picture was taken as part of a photo shoot for their Mexico/ Latin America December 2013 edition. They wrote the image, depicting Cindy with stretch marks and all, “is real, it is honest, and it is gorgeous”.

[Which would probably have been an empowering thing to say if they had actually used the supposedly ‘real’ and ‘honest’ and ‘gorgeous’ photograph in their magazine rather than wait for it to be leaked 2 years later.]

Read more: Finally, a lingerie advertising campaign featuring genuinely un-retouched supermodels. 

In an interview with Marie Claire magazine at the time, Crawford said that she tries to be a good role model for her daughter by accepting herself.

“I was never one of the skinny skinny girls who could eat whatever they wanted, so I certainly exercise and try to eat right.

“But at the same time, I try to be a good role model for my daughter in terms of just accepting myself, not saying ‘Does this make me look fat?’ or ‘I can’t eat that’ or ‘I’m on a diet.’ I just try to lead by example.

Fans applauded the Photoshop-free picture of the supermodel for showing a genuine female form.

The overwhelmingly positive reactions shows that people are craving more realistic images in their media. The only question left is: when will magazine editors sit up and take note?