A portrait of a boy by Lucian Freud sold for £122,500.
A remarkable group of 11 previously unpublished letters – written by a young Lucian Freud to his first girlfriend, Felicity Hellaby – sold today at Sotheby’s for £122,500 – over thirty times the pre-sale estimate.
This study of a bird by Lucian Freud made £134,500.
Written in an uneven hand, peppered with illustrations, and providing a fascinating insight into the artist’s early preoccupations, the letters attracted fierce bidding from a wide range of potential buyers. They were sold alongside three drawings, also given by Freud to Felicity. The first – a charming study of a bird – sold to a telephone bidder for £134,500 against an estimate of £12,000-£18,000. The second – a striking portrait of a boy with a letter to Felicity in one corner and a playful reference to John Craxton in another – opened at a dramatic £100,000. Competitors quickly withdrew and that first determined bid won the day, making for a final all-in price of £122,500 against the opening estimate of £15,000-20,000. A portrait of Felicity doubled its high estimate, bringing the total for the collection to £412,000 against a pre-sale high estimate of £58,000.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 10, 2013).