Record €18m sale hope for Bacon painting

A PAINTING by Francis Bacon is predicted to break the Dublin-born artist’s sale record when it goes under the hammer next month.

Study for Portrait II is estimated to fetch up to €18 million at Christie’s.

It was unveiled yesterday at the London auction house — the first time it has appeared in public since 1963.

Christie’s describe the painting, one of Bacon’s Papal portraits, as among the most important Bacon works ever to appear at auction.

The current record for the artist is for Version No 2 of lying figure with hypodermic syringe, 1968, which sold at Sotheby’s New York in November for €11.75m.

“This is an exciting opportunity to be able to work with such a significant painting,” said Pilar Ordovas, head of Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie’s.

“We expect records to be broken when it is offered in February.”

The painting will be auctioned on February 8.

Study for Portrait II was painted in 1956 and is one of a series of more than 50 Papal paintings Bacon produced during that decade.

Unlike many of the others, Study for Portrait II presents a sympathetic image of the Pope as a tragic hero overwhelmed by external forces.

The faces of Bacon’s portraits at this time suggested the influence of Bacon’s long-term lover, Peter Lacy. Study for Portrait II was painted shortly after Bacon returned from visiting Lacy in Morocco.