Bacon portrait expected to sell for about £30m

An artwork depicting the tragic muse and lover of record-breaking artist Francis Bacon is estimated to fetch about £30m next month – the first time such a work has come up for auction in a decade.

By The Newsroom

Published 16th Jan 2014, 00:01 BST

The almost two-metre tall canvas features George Dyer, who died of an overdose in Paris two days before the painting was displayed at Bacon’s first major retrospective at the Grand Palais in 1971.

It will be sold at Christie’s in London and could set a record price for a single canvas by the artist. The work, Portrait of George Dyer Talking, was last sold at Christie’s New York in 2000 when it sold for £4m – a record for Bacon at the time.