Sexual Bacon nude portrait sells for £21m

A “sexually charged” nude portrait by Francis Bacon has sold for £21m – £1m more than the top pre-auction estimate.

By The Newsroom

Published 16th Feb 2012, 06:00 BST

The Portrait Of Henrietta Moraes had been owned by a private collector for 30 years and unseen in public for 15 years until it was put on display before the sale at Christie’s in London.

The price made the painting the second most valuable work of post-war contemporary art ever sold at the auction house, behind another piece by Bacon, whose Triptych sold in February 2008 for £26.3m.

The world record price for one of the Irish artist’s paintings was set in May 2008 when Triptych (1976) went for £43m in New York.

His Henrietta Moraes portrait was painted in 1963. Most of Bacon’s works from that year are now in major museums.

A Christie’s spokesman said the portrait was “one of the most seductive and sexually-charged paintings I have ever encountered by Francis Bacon”.

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