portrait of British artist Francis Bacon written by his friend, compatriot and no less famous painter Lusienom Freud, may be at the London auction house Christie's with the assessment of 7 million pounds sterling (12,4 million dollars). Freud, the author of the most expensive work, owned by living artist, has not had time to finish the portrait, which, however, writes as a columnist agency Bloomberg, represents an exceptional interest to collectors.

Bacon wrote Freud in 1956 and 1957 years. He managed to complete only the model, and it is not full: presumably Bacon stopped coming to sessions because they rushed to Morocco after his then-lover, Peter Lacy. Portrait from 1972 is held in private collections and almost never exhibited.

is only one known portrait of Bacon painted by Freud, painted in 1952. He belonged to the London Tate Gallery, and it was stolen in 1988 from the Berlin retrospective of Freud. The artist has since banned the reproduction of the work reproduced in color.

In May 2008 sleeping nude portrait chinovnitsy named Sue, written by Freud in 1995 , was sold at Christie's for 33.6 million dollars . This is a brand new record value for the 85-year-old paintings artist. Then, in May, triptych painted by Francis Bacon went under the hammer for 86.2 million . According to unconfirmed reports, both of the acquired Roman Abramovich.

Source: lenta.ru