A SON BY HIS POSH MUSE
FREUD’s 1974 Hayward Gallery retrospective exhibition included full-frontal nude pictures of Lady Jacquetta Eliot. In all, she sat for Freud for nine years from 1969 to 1978, and featured in nine of his paintings.
1. The Whirling Dervish
GROWING up, Francis Eliot, 45, considered himself the son of Perry, the raffish 10th Earl of St Germans, although it was an open secret that he was the issue of Jacquetta’s long affair with Freud.
He was named after Freud’s fellow artist Francis Bacon, giving rise to a sardonic joke from Perry, who knew he was not the boy’s biological father: ‘How do you like your bacon ? Freud?’
Francis is married with two children and lives in an artistic community in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. He is an expert whirling dervish, the eastern dance practised by islamic mystics, and teaches dance in the 5 rhythms method, combining movement and meditation.