Portrait of Jeremy King by Lucian Freud coming to auction at Sotheby’s

A portrait of restaurateur Jeremy King by artist Lucian Freud, who was a regular at the Wolseley, will be coming to auction at Sotheby’s on 15 October.

The Head of Jeremy King etching on copper plate is the first artwork by Freud, the 20th-century figurative painter and grandson of Sigmund Freud, to be offered at auction.

It is being sold from King’s own collection and is estimated to be valued at £250,000 - £350,000.

King and Lucian's friendship began when the duo first met in 1981 at Le Caprice, the restaurant King opened with Chris Corbin at the age of 26.

Lucian ate almost every night at the Wolseley restaurant after Corbin and King opened it in 2003. He invited King to sit for a painting from 2006 to 2007, and later for an etching from 2008 to 2011, which became one of his final works.

The night after the artist’s death in 2011, the Wolseley placed a black tablecloth over his corner table with a single burning candle. An ice cream dessert, Coupe Lucian, was later named in memory of Freud.

King sat in Freud’s Kensington studio two mornings a week during the production of the copper plate etching, which is technically incomplete.

King said: “[The Wolseley] was a place [Lucian] would adopt as his home over the next eight years, and he became, over time, the only person I would sit with in the restaurant except my immediate family. He would come up to six, sometimes seven times a week for dinner, often post-sittings, usually with a model, but never could I have dreamt that I would become one of them.

“He was one of the most honest people I have ever met, and the time I was lucky enough to spend with him enriched my life completely.”

Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s chairman of Europe, added: “This portrait brings together two absolute masters of their respective arts. Freud was a social commentator as much as an artist, and it was not lost on him that King’s restaurants were the ultimate melting pots of their time, with King - the conductor at the centre of it all – being a natural subject for one of his portraits.

“While we will never know what Freud’s intended printed etching would have looked like, this luminous copper plate, replete with the artist’s meticulous scratches and chalk marks - laboured over for three years - is an artistic triumph in its own right, and marks the culmination of Freud’s extraordinary seven-decade long career.”