Nun gallops off with £40k godsend from Lucian Freud

Eight years after he died one of Britain’s greatest artists has left a most unlikely bequest to a nun who runs a pony centre in West London next to a notorious prison.

Lucian Freud used to make dawn visits to paint horses in London’s Wormwood Scrubs where he befriended Sister Mary Joy Langdon, a Roman Catholic religious sister.

One of his unfinished sketches of a pony called goldie — which he gifted to Sister Mary Joy — was sold yesterday at Chiswick Auctions for £40,000.

Sister Mary Joy struck up an improbable friendship with Freud after he turned up in 2002. She failed to recognise him and mistook him for an amateur and handed him a beginner’s book on how to paint horses, which he soon returned.

Such is the reverence for the artist, who died aged 88 leaving £96 million in his will — with 14 children acknowledged and many unacknowledged — that a broken mug and a few rags covered with oil which belonged to him fetched £2,800 at the same auction. his palette sold for £3,000 and his easel went for £2,200.

Sister Mary Joy is understandably overjoyed. ‘We’re all very happy with the outcome,’ she tells me. She says that until January this year, no one other than herself, Freud and his friend and photographer David Dawson had ever seen the sketch of goldie.

the proceeds of the auction will secure the future of the centre, which helps children with learning difficulties, mental health problems and physical disabilities.

Despite the sale, Freud has not been expunged from the pony centre. ‘i haven’t got any more sketches,’ acknowledges Sister Mary Joy, ‘but i took a few photographs of him. Not very many, but the ones that i’ve got are certainly treasured possessions.’