Bacon painting to fetch €9.4m

A FRANCIS BACON portrait of his friend is expected to fetch £7.5 million (€9.4m) at auction.

The work has been owned by Garech Browne, a member of the Guinness brewing dynasty, since 1970, a year after it was painted.

The portrait is of socialite Henrietta Moraes, who sat for several artists and was one of a small number of women that Bacon painted.

She became a close friend and Soho drinking partner of Bacon in the 1950s, before he found fame, and sat for the artist several times.

The model inscribed the reverse of the canvas, which will go under-the-hammer at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art sale in London on October 19.

Pilar Ordovas, head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s, said: “This portrait of Henrietta Moraes is a wonderful painting which offers a fascinating insight into life and the characters of 1960s Soho.”

Earlier this year, Bacon’s 1967 work Study for Head of George Dyer sold for £13.8 million pounds at Sotheby’s in London.

Moraes, who died in 1998 and battled drink and drug addictions, was also painted by Lucian Freud.

Browne, the seller of the painting, went on to become a patron of the arts.

Bacon, who died in 1992, is currently the subject of a retrospective at Tate Britain.