Legendary myth of Orpen painting lives on in sale value
A beautiful young woman, a German spy; the London War Office and an execution — the story behind William Orpen’s Nude Girl Reading, which comes up at Sotheby’s Irish Art sale in London on October 21, is stranger than the truth.
The Irish artist enjoyed success and notoriety in equal measure and the sitter for the work was his lover, Yvonne Aubicq, daughter of the mayor of Lille.
