Freud artwork sold for £35m

A LUCIAN Freud nude portrait has sold at auction for more than £35m after four bidders became locked in a battle to buy the modern masterpiece.

Benefits Supervisor Resting, a depiction of one of the British artist’s regular models, Sue Tilley, sold at Christie’s in New York. The work, which went for £35.7m, had never been offered at auction before and was bought by a bidder in the room after a four-way race drove the price up.

His works command huge prices and unpublished letters written while he was a student sold for more than £100,000 last year.