Francis Bacon collection sells for €1.4m

A COLLECTION of previously unseen paintings, letters, diaries and photographs belonging to artist Francis Bacon sold for £965,490 (€1,416,825) at auction last night.

There were 45 lots in total and most exceeded their estimated price tags.

The most expensive item, an untitled portrait listed at £12,000-18,000, was bought by a telephone bidder for £400,000.

The sitter is unknown, but is said to bear similarities to Bacon’s other works of fellow painter Lucian Freud.

One painting of a reclining dog was expected to fetch £2,000-3,000 but sold for £260,000.

About 100 people attended the auction at Ewbank fine art auctioneers in Surrey, where they were joined by telephone and internet bidders. No online bidders were successful and only one lot failed to sell.

The auction came in the same week as the 15th anniversary of Bacon’s death. He died on April 28, 1992.

Personal items such as cheque stubs, passports and diaries were the first to go under the hammer. A diary from 1971, which mentioned the death of his former lover George Dyer, went for £2,000. The cheapest item in the collection was a solicitor’s letter to Bacon which fetched £40.

Four portraits with holes in them went for £107,000. Chris Proud-Love, on behalf of the auctioneers, said: “Bacon was renowned for self-editing his work and if he wasn’t satisfied, he would cut out the parts he didn’t like. Sometimes it would be a chin or an ear.”

He said the seller, Mac Robertson, inherited the collection while working at Bacon’s studio in London.