£27,000-£40,000
$50,000-$80,000 Value Indicator
$45,000-$70,000 Value Indicator
¥250,000-¥370,000 Value Indicator
€30,000-€45,000 Value Indicator
$270,000-$400,000 Value Indicator
¥5,060,000-¥7,500,000 Value Indicator
$35,000-$50,000 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
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Medium: Etching
Edition size: 50
Year: 1987
Size: H 61cm x W 78cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
December 2023 | Bonhams New Bond Street | United Kingdom | |||
May 2023 | Artcurial | France | |||
March 2023 | Sotheby's London | United Kingdom | |||
June 2022 | Bonhams New Bond Street | United Kingdom | |||
September 2021 | Sotheby's Online | United Kingdom | |||
September 2019 | Sotheby's London | United Kingdom | |||
March 2015 | Sotheby's London | United Kingdom |
This etching was executed by Lucian Freud in 1987 during a fruitful period of printmaking. As the title of the work would suggest, Freud depicts a nude woman sitting on the floor with her back apparently slumped against a wall. Typical of his innovative use of composition, the seated body of the sitter is spread across the top of the composition, cropping the top of her head out of the frame and leaving the bottom of the work empty. Freud's viewpoint, slightly from above, provides emphasis on her slumping figure and draws attention to her stern gaze.
Though the identity of this unnamed sitter is unknown, we can observe in Girl Sitting an intimate bond between sitter and artist so typical of Freud's work. Renowned for his risqué love-life, the sitter might have been one of Freud's many lovers who sat for him in the studio.
In his handling of composition, this work is not dissimilar to another of Freud's Naked Portraits: Girl Holding Her Foot. Though Freud has depicted these figures in seemingly odd places, and left their backgrounds unmarked, his masterful tonality gives weight to their nudes bodies. In many works from our Naked Portraits collection of his work, Freud focuses on the curvature of women's bodies, challenging demanding beauty standards and the expectations of women's bodies in popular culture.