Bacon’s Freud, yours for £35m

IT HAS been hidden from public view for nearly 60 years, and is one great British artist’s effort to capture another.

Now Francis Bacon’s Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud will be auctioned this month – for an estimated £35million.

The figurative work, which has been in the same private collection for 40 years, was painted in 1964 and is based on a photograph of Bacon’s fellow artist Freud.

Last exhibited in 1965, it will go on sale as part of Sotheby’s British Art: The Jubilee Auction marquee on June 29, along with other masterpieces.