Overview
- Sotheby’s unveiled Sleeping by the Lion Carpet and will exhibit it in London from June 10 to June 23 before offering it in The Lewis Collection sale on June 24–25 with a presale estimate of £25–£35 million.
- The painting is the last and largest of Freud’s four portraits of Sue Tilley and is being promoted by the auction house as one of the artist’s defining masterpieces.
- Sue Tilley, the sitter, has spoken publicly about the work’s celebration of non‑normative bodies and noted that she was paid only a modest day rate for the sittings and did not share in later auction windfalls.
- The lot pushes the Lewis Collection’s total estimate north of £150 million and arrives on a market shaped by past high‑value Freud sales, including works that have sold for tens of millions of pounds.
- If the painting exceeds expectations it could set or approach new price benchmarks for Freud and intensify public debate about how models, estates, and collectors benefit from landmark works.