Lucian Freud’s Sleeping by the Lion Carpet (1995–96), described by art critic Martin Gayford as “the most important work that Freud has ever painted,” will be offered at Sotheby’s London in June with an estimate of £25 million–£35 million ($33 million–$45 million).
The eight-foot canvas is the final and most ambitious of four monumental portraits Freud painted of Sue Tilley, who was working in a London social welfare office when she became one of his most celebrated sitters. Introduced to Freud through performance artist and fashion designer Leigh Bowery, Tilley sat for nine months while Freud painted her slumped and asleep in a leather armchair. In the painting, her body is rendered in what Sotheby’s head of contemporary art Tom Eddison called “sculptural intensity that is both unflinching and deeply humane,” in a statement.
The painting has been held in the collection of British financier Joe Lewis since 1996, acquired directly from Freud’s gallerist Bill Acquavella. It has never previously appeared on the open market. The last time a major work from the Sue Tilley series came to auction—Benefits Supervisor Resting (1995) in 2015 — it sold for $56.2 million, a record at the time for any living artist.
In a statement, Sotheby’s European chairman Oliver Barker called Sleeping by the Lion Carpet “the Mona Lisa of the modern age,” drawing on Freud’s lifelong dialogue with Old Masters including Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, and Diego Velázquez.
“Sleeping by the Lion Carpet is a masterpiece by any measure. It is, quite simply, one of the greatest portraits of the 20th century, if not in the entire history of Western art,” said Barker in a statement.
Sleeping by the Lion Carpet will go on public view at Sotheby's New Bond Street galleries from June 10–23, as part of a broader sale of over 50 works from the Lewis Collection. That sale carries a combined estimate in excess of £150 million ($201.57 million), making it the most valuable collection ever offered in the U.K.
