A portrait by Lucian Freud featuring a woman from Sussex has sold at auction for £25m.
The artwork, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, went under the hammer at Sotheby’s, with the sitter Sue Tilley describing it as showing her in “my glorious naked bigness squashed into a chair with a lion carpet behind me”.
Tilley, who lives in St Leonards, spent months sitting for the work in Freud’s studio in London’s Holland Park. She described his studio as “really shabby”, with “all sorts of rubbish on the floor” and even “a Rodin being used as a doorstop”.
The portrait, which had a sale estimate of £25m to £30m, was sold for a total of £29,260,000, including the buyer’s premium and the final bid of £25m.
Tilley said the portrait took about nine months to complete, with sittings typically lasting from early morning until mid-afternoon several days a week – but including long restaurant lunches with champagne.
Despite the high price achieved at auction, Tilley said she never received a share of proceeds from the painting.
“I’ve never got actually paid any money from the portrait selling, but I’ve got little jobs and bits and bobs, and Sotheby’s were very generous to me for helping them out,” she said.
“So I have earned money along the way, but nowhere near £25m.”
She also rejected being described as the artist’s “muse”.
“I hate that word because I imagine a very thin little person you know, all in love and wafting around in chiffon dresses, pining for the artist which wasn’t me, I have to say,” she said.
Tilley said her involvement in Freud’s work came about by chance and that, despite the painting’s global profile, her life by the sea remained largely unchanged.
Most of the time, she said, her days were “very mundane”.
“I lie around watching telly, going down the beach, sit in the sun, chit-chat, chat to my friends, and then out of the blue suddenly something really bizarre happens and I’m all busy for about a week and it’s all over,” she added.
The sale coincided with Hastings Contemporary’s new exhibition on Henry Moore and Lucian Freud.
The event includes Woman with an Arm Tattoo, an etching depicting Sue Tilley, and runs until 13 September.
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