An intimate portrait by Lucian Freud of one of his children that has not been seen in public for more than 20 years is expected to fetch up to £20m when it is auctioned next week.
Ib Reading was the result of more than 70 sittings by Isobel Boyt in the artist’s studio in Holland Park, west London, in 1997. Known to her family as Ib, Boyt is painted while reading Marcel Proust’s 4,000-page novel Remembrance of Things Past, wearing a loose dress, with her bare feet up on a chair and the book in her lap.
