Freudian background to Sotheby’s sale of portrait of Bernadine Coverley

Bernardine Coverley, daughter of Irish parents who ran a pub in Brixton, met the painter, Lucian Freud when she was 16 and he was 20 years her senior.

He had already been twice married and had fathered a number of children. She became mother of their daughters, Bella and Esther, and moved with them to Morocco after the relationship ended.

The story of their lifestyle in Marrakesh was told in Esther Freud’s novel Hideous Kinky, later made into a film in which Coverley was played by Kate Winslet. Freud and Coverly died within four days of each other in July 2011.