Nude portrait of model Kate Moss fetches $7.3M
Lili2
one of Britain's most renowned artists, Lucian Freud, sold for 3.93
million pounds ($7.32 million) at a London auction on Wednesday.
Auction house Christie's said an anonymous telephone bidder bought the
near-lifesize painting, "Naked Portrait 2002," which had been estimated
to fetch up to 3.5 million pounds.
"(It) is very rare in Freud's oeuvre for being one of only a few
portraits the artist has painted of well-known or famous people,"
Christie's said in a statement.
"In this case Freud's sitter is, with the possible exception of Queen
Elizabeth II , probably the most famous figure ever to be painted by
the artist."
The full-length painting of British model Moss shows her pregnant,
reclining on a bed with her left arm across a pillow.
The British model suggested the collaboration after saying in a
magazine article that one of her remaining ambitions was to be painted
by Freud.
Freud, who also painted Texan model Jerry Hall (news) when she was
pregnant, began the work in 2001 and it took almost a year of sittings
to complete.
Freud, grandson of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, once said he
disliked painting models as "they've grown another skin because they've
been looked at so much."
He turned down the chance to paint the late Princess Diana, saying he
couldn't get past "that sheen of glamour" in order to "get at the real
person."
"Naked 2002" was sold by a private American collector who bought the
painting shortly after completion for an undisclosed sum.
A second portrait, "Red-Haired Man on a Chair," sold for 4.15 million
pounds at the same central London sale, a record for the artist at
auction, Christie's said.
Essb
stand for $150 and a dinner.
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