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A Lucian Freud portrait of his daughter, Isobel Boyt, sold for more than £17 million at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary evening sale last night.
The portrait, which is the only Rubens of its kind to fuse mythology with reality, will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s New York this spring
Last seen publicly more than 20 years ago in an exhibition in New York, Ib Reading depicts Isobel, known to her loved ones as ‘Ib’, in Freud’s innermost sanctum, his Holland Park studio. Wearing a loose dress, her feet resting on the chair opposite in a pose of serenity, Isobel is portrayed reading Marcel Proust’s novel, Remembrance of Things Past, which is open in her lap. Behind Isobel stands a plain oak chest with tarnished brass handles, in which Freud kept his letters, telegrams and photographs from as early as the 1940s.
Executed in 1997, during a decade in which saw Freud paint some of his most ambitious works, the piece had remained in the same private collection until it was unveiled by Sotheby’s in London (where Tatler held its Platinum Jubilee Gala).
‘I have never forgotten our happy riding lessons which resulted in many years of enjoyable times in the saddle’, Princess Margaret wrote to her riding instructor
Reminiscing about the duration for which she sat for her father, Isobel told Sotheby’s: ‘My father never chose the pose of his sitters. He would often make suggestions, but he never said, “I want you wearing this and sitting there”. There were limited possibilities with the studio too, with minimal furniture, a day bed, an armchair but not much more. It was always very warm. He made everything feel easy and the choice was endlessly yours. He wanted to paint people as they were, he didn’t want to mould them or persuade them to do one thing or another. He had chosen to paint us, and part of who we were was how we chose to sit.’
She continued: “I did not wish to be portrayed reading, I wished to read. It was something I normally wouldn’t have time to do with three young children. It was an opportunity. My father was very well read. Any turn of phrase, sentence or even paragraph he was impressed by, he would often learn and recite. He had an incredible memory and loved literature.’
‘During his lifetime, Lucian Freud painted, drew or etched more than 30 portraits of his children, and often after a significant time of paternal absence had passed,’ Sotheby’s explained. ‘For both the artist and his children, these sittings became an opportunity to better know one another: to connect and to develop a relationship in these uninterrupted moments.’
