Still Life With Plant, which measures 247 x 180mm (9 5/8 x 7 1/8in), is a particularly early work, dating from the 1940s.
Forum Auctions estimates that it will fetch between £3,000 to £5,000. Will Kilbourn, from its modern and contemporary art department, said that the drawing’s “scars reveal its fascinating history”.
He told the Telegraph: “It boasts a remarkable story, passing through the hands of two key figures in Freud’s artistic and social circles, and resurrected in an act of Kintsugi [the centuries-old Japanese practice in which prized objects are repaired by beautifying cracks, as a visual record of its history]… It is quite astonishing that it was torn up and put back together again.”
He added: “This deftly-worked ink drawing brings to the fore an often-overlooked facet of Freud’s oeuvre – plants. However, in recent times, the importance of horticultural subjects has been spotlighted, namely by Giovanni Aloi’s book Lucian Freud Herbarium, 2019, as well as a dedicated exhibition at London’s Garden Museum earlier this year.
“Here, Freud treats the still life with the same unapologetic psychological rigour as he does his celebrated portraiture. Perhaps this is what drew Raymond Hall… to acquire the work.”
Freud regretted creating work
But Still Life With Plant is among several works which Freud regretted having created. In 2021, three specialists concluded that he had painted Standing Male Nude, despite his denials.
It emerged that, about 25 years earlier, Freud had tried in vain to persuade a Swiss collector to allow him to buy it. The collector politely refused and claims that Freud had told him angrily that, unless he sold it to him, he would deny that he painted it.
The collector and his friend Thierry Navarro, a private investigator who conducted extensive research into the painting, concluded that Freud’s desperation to acquire it was due to embarrassment as the male nude appears to be a self-portrait.
In 2016, an early Freud picture – The Man in the Black Cravat – was attributed to the artist, despite his own denials that he painted it. Philip Mould’s BBC show Fake or Fortune? uncovered crucial evidence, leading a number of leading art authorities to verify the painting as a work that Freud created at art school, probably in 1939.
The artist had apparently refused to acknowledge it because it was originally owned by Denis Wirth-Miller, a fellow artist with whom he had a long-running feud.
