Egg portrait expected to sell for £100,000

An egg kept in a drawer for 33 years is expected to sell for £100,000 – as it has the face of Lucian Freud on it.

Rather than it being a case of apparent divine intervention, the late artist daubed the self-portrait on the shell for an Easter-themed exhibition at London’s Langton Gallery in 1979.
The egg – which has Freud’s fingerprints on the back – was later given as a gift to the curator of the event.

It remained in an egg box for more than three decades before she dug it out after deciding to sell.  ‘When the vendor said she had a self-portrait of Lucian Freud on an egg, you think that does sound a bit strange,’ said expert Alexander Hayter.

‘However, when she explained it, it was really quite fascinating.’

The 5cm (2in) egg – Freud’s only 3D piece – has a pre-sale estimate of £15,000 but bidders could end up shelling out more than six times that amount when it goes under the hammer at Bloomsbury Auctions, London, on June 21.

The owner, named as Hope, is aged in her 60s and lives in Hampshire.

Freud died in July, aged 88.


/metro.co.uk/