A Francis Bacon triptych depicting his close friend Henrietta Moraes has sold for £24.3 million at Sotheby's in London. It was the highest price paid at an auction in Frieze Week, the annual international art event, in the last 10 years.
The paintings, titled Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, come from the collection of American media executive William S Paley. Moraes was a colourful figure at the heart of Soho's artistic life in the post-war era and acted as a muse for both Bacon and Lucian Freud.
Mr Paley, the president of CBS, acquired the work from Marlborough Gallery months after it was finished in 1963. It has been under the stewardship of the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York since he died in 1990.
