(London) A triptych by Francis Bacon sold for 24.3 million pounds (27.9 million euros) in an auction held Friday in London at Sotheby’s.
Posted at 3:38 p.m.
Entitled Three studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraesit is made up of three small canvases – approximately 35 cm by 30 cm – which served as studies for the portrait of Henrietta Moraes, one of the muses of the British painter.
Until now owned by the William S. Paley Foundation, an American businessman who founded the CBS television network, the 1963 work was estimated at 30 million pounds.
In this work, Bacon’s execution “has a power, a quality, a confidence that it has rarely surpassed in this format”, according to Sotheby’s.
The triptych was the centerpiece of this sale organized at a time when the Frieze contemporary art fair is taking place in the British capital.
Other works, by Jean Dubuffet, Andy Warhol, David Hockney or Gerhard Richter, were put on sale Friday by Sotheby’s in London.
Another triptych by Bacon, Three studies by Lucian Freudhad sold for 142.4 million dollars in 2013, at Christie’s in New York, which had ranked it among the 10 paintings having reached the highest prices at auction.
Last June, a portrait of Lucian Freud by Bacon sold in London for more than 43.3 million pounds.