Lucian Freud egg painting auction expected to reach £150,000

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32942585

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A Lucian Freud painting of eggs which he created as a present for a friend is expected to fetch £150,000 at auction.

Four Eggs on a Plate was a gift to the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, an aristocrat renowned for her beauty and love of chickens.

She kept the birds on her estate and would take Freud eggs whenever she visited London, leaving them on his doorstep if he was not in.

The work has been described as a "token of a lifetime of shared memories".

'Adored and admired'

Freud, whose family moved to St John's Wood, north London, when he was a child, often visited the Duchess Deborah Cavendish and her husband at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

Oliver Barker, from Sotheby's which is auctioning the painting on 1 July, said: "We see Freud's tremendous virtuosity as a painter, transforming a simple subject into a work of extraordinary power - and we see the portrait of a friendship between an artist and a duchess."

The Dowager led a colourful life, becoming friends with John F Kennedy, exchanging letters with Evelyn Waugh and growing close to the royals.

Freud's painting will be sold in the blue box it has been kept in along with an oil rag and note in the Dowager's hand which reads: "Box & rag he uses in his studio containing the painting of 4 eggs given me by Lucian Freud autumn 2002, DD".