Lucian Freud’s drugged rat to claw in thousands at Sotheby’s

The rough 12cm drawing is a study of Freud’s first ever male nude model, Raymond Jones, complete with a rodent
“Odd picture”: Freud and Raymond Jones holding the rodent in Naked Man With Rat
Robert Dex @RobDexES30 August 2016

A page torn out of Lucian Freud’s diary featuring the artist’s sketch of a rat he subdued with sleeping pills and champagne is expected to sell for thousands of pounds when it goes under the hammer next month.

The rough 12cm drawing is a study of Freud’s first ever male nude model, Raymond Jones, complete with the rodent that also appears alongside him in a painting done the same year — called Naked Man With Rat.

Freud agreed to portray Jones, an interior decorator and fixture on the London art scene, in return for Jones lending him money to cover his gambling debts.

The pair first met when Jones bought a portrait by Freud of George Dyer, the burglar who became artist Francis Bacon’s lover after breaking into his studio. Jones subsequently sat for a series of portraits.

Valuable sketch: the drawing is set to command thousands of pounds at auction

For the sketch, the small mammal was drugged with sleeping pills that Freud mixed into champagne. His model told one Freud biographer: “There was nothing said about it being an odd picture to paint. Nothing about the fact that the rat is near my testicles. This was never discussed.”

The drawing, valued at about £6,000, goes under the hammer at Sotheby’s in New Bond Street as part of its Made in Britain sale on September 28, which includes work by Grayson Perry, David Hockney and Banksy.

Also in the auction is a photograph of Freud in his studio with two large nudes of another of his regular models, Leigh Bowery, valued at £3,500. A 1985 etching called Blond Girl is estimated to fetch £40,000. Freud, who died in 2011 aged 88 after working most of his life in Paddington, is widely recognised as a giant of British art.

His work Benefits Supervisor Resting, featuring another regular model, Sue Tilley, sold for more than £35 million last year.

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