The picture of the heir to the throne at a French chateau with just a toweling robe draped over his shoulder left little to the imagination when it was splashed on the front page of the German tabloid Bild on Wednesday.
"You can compare it with the David of Michelangelo," Paul Martin, deputy editor of Bild, told BBC radio justifying his decision to publish.
Martin said he had taken calls from delighted readers. "It is an absolutely perfectly shaped body," he added.
But a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace branded the photos highly intrusive. "It's completely unjustifiable to inflict this sort of intrusion on anyone," she said. The palace was "considering what (action) may be appropriate."
But Bild raved about 45-year-old Charles's bronzed body, "hunky like a Greek statue," laying claim to the first nude picture of Queen Elizabeth's eldest son.
"We were offered the picture yesterday and we bought it right away," Martin said. "We have had consultations of course with our lawyers and our legal department and they had no doubts about publishing it."
He refused to say how much the picture had cost but said the price tag was "surprisingly low."
The Bild snap is the latest in an embarrassing paparazzi album of holiday pictures of Britain's troubled royal family.
There have been shots of Diana in various states of undress, of Prince Andrew "skinny-dipping" in a Canadian river and of his topless, estranged wife "Fergie" having her toes sucked by a Texan financial adviser by the side of a pool in St Tropez.
British papers have been threatened by the government with tough new curbs if they do not clean up their act and officials particularly targeted long-lens photography as intrusive.
Paparazzi photographers had laid siege to the stately chateau of Baroness Louise de Waldner in Barroux in southern France when Charles arrived and police strove to prevent "peeping tom" pictures of Britain's future monarch. But it became clear Tuesday that a successful "snapper" had stolen a nude photograph of Charles.
Britain's tabloids did not carry the picture but their court correspondents said Charles was furious.
"Charles Fury as Magazine Shows Crown Jewels," ran the headline on a story in Britain's Today tabloid.
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