A portrait of Henrietta Moraes by Francis Bacon was sold for £ 21.3M including premium by Christie's on February 14, 2012. It comes back for sale on May 13 in New York, also at Christie's, lot 23B.
Here is my previous discussion (slightly modified) of this lot :
They were not only boys in Soho drinking clubs. Francis Bacon looks at the girls although he is not sexually concerned with them.
They do not sit in his studio. He requires the photos by John Deakin to prepare the paintings of these friends but it is his usual practice for males or females, in close up faces or full length in the nude.
His two muses are Muriel Belcher and Henrietta Moraes. A painting made in 1961, showing one of them or a mixing of both, was sold for £ 8.3 million including premium by Sotheby's on 29 June 2011. In discussing this work in this column, I had indicated that the woman looked like a crouching piece of meat.
The figure of Henrietta coming for sale is an oil on canvas 165 x 142 cm painted in 1963. Perhaps in an effort to appreciate heterosexuality, the artist displays the woman naked on a bed with a pillow.
Henrietta, 33 years old, is not a monster. Francis appreciated that fact and this painting in lavish colors is a rare example of female eroticism in his art.
Here is my previous discussion (slightly modified) of this lot :
They were not only boys in Soho drinking clubs. Francis Bacon looks at the girls although he is not sexually concerned with them.
They do not sit in his studio. He requires the photos by John Deakin to prepare the paintings of these friends but it is his usual practice for males or females, in close up faces or full length in the nude.
His two muses are Muriel Belcher and Henrietta Moraes. A painting made in 1961, showing one of them or a mixing of both, was sold for £ 8.3 million including premium by Sotheby's on 29 June 2011. In discussing this work in this column, I had indicated that the woman looked like a crouching piece of meat.
The figure of Henrietta coming for sale is an oil on canvas 165 x 142 cm painted in 1963. Perhaps in an effort to appreciate heterosexuality, the artist displays the woman naked on a bed with a pillow.
Henrietta, 33 years old, is not a monster. Francis appreciated that fact and this painting in lavish colors is a rare example of female eroticism in his art.
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