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Lot Essay
‘I react to what is there. I don’t make anything up. Having said that, there are so many things to react to in a portrait. There are so many qualities to a person – not only their features and gestures, but how their size and demeanour relate to you and the room. What I choose to select of all these qualities could be considered an exaggeration, but it isn’t. It’s my selection of qualities that I see’
(L. Freud, quoted in Lucian Freud: Portraits, exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery, London, 2012, p. 210).
Executed circa 1957-1958, Head of a Boy by Lucian Freud depicts the young face of Peregrine Andrew Morny ‘Stoker’ Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington who would later become the 12th Duke of Devonshire. The simplicity of this accomplished drawing enhances the delicate features of the young boy, whose eyes are resolutely fixed on a distant point. The meticulous care with which the portrait has been drawn, as well as its apparent ease, evidences Freud’s familiarity and intimacy with his subject.
Andrew and Deborah Cavendish, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, were in fact great friends of Freud’s. When speaking of their close friendship the Duchess once remarked ‘I really love him and I always have’ (D. Cavendish, quoted in S. Moss, ‘The Duchess of Devonshire: ‘When you are very old, you cry over some things, but not a lot’, The Guardian, 12 September 2010). She would visit him while in London, sometimes leaving him eggs on the doorstep which she said, ‘He seems to like’ (D. Cavendish, quoted in S. Moss, ‘The Duchess of Devonshire: ‘When you are very old, you cry over some things, but not a lot’, The Guardian, 12 September 2010). They were introduced in the 1940s by the Duke’s sister, Lady Anne Tree, and shared the same circle of friends revolving around Ann Fleming, the wife of Ian Fleming. The Duke spotted the genius of Freud early on, long before he became known as Britain’s greatest living painter, and became a major collector of his works. The Devonshires became part of Freud’s coterie of sitters: he painted both of the Duke’s sisters before producing portraits of the Duke, the Duchess, and their son Peregrine. Significantly, Freud was the Duke and Duchesses first house guest when they moved into Chatsworth in 1959, around the time that this portrait of their son was completed. ‘Lucian Freud is very good company, very stimulating company’ Peregrine once said. ‘He is very lovely and has a number of good friends who he has been friends with for a long time’ (P. Cavendish, quoted in L. Jury, ‘The late duke, a £1.5m Freud painting, and a friendship that lasted 50 years’, The Guardian, 1 July 2004).
Freud is famed for focusing his portraiture on those people who form part of his family or his close circle of friends, often returning to paint the same subject again. They are people whom he knows and is able to scrutinise with a profound knowledge and familiarity, so that he might come closer to the truth about the character of the sitter. Peregrine himself sat for Freud on a second occasion in the summer of 1962, although the painting was never finished. Head of a Boy, despite its modesty, effortlessly captures a vivid sense of the life and character of Peregrine, the son of arguably two of Freud’s oldest and dearest friends.
(L. Freud, quoted in Lucian Freud: Portraits, exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery, London, 2012, p. 210).
Executed circa 1957-1958, Head of a Boy by Lucian Freud depicts the young face of Peregrine Andrew Morny ‘Stoker’ Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington who would later become the 12th Duke of Devonshire. The simplicity of this accomplished drawing enhances the delicate features of the young boy, whose eyes are resolutely fixed on a distant point. The meticulous care with which the portrait has been drawn, as well as its apparent ease, evidences Freud’s familiarity and intimacy with his subject.
Andrew and Deborah Cavendish, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, were in fact great friends of Freud’s. When speaking of their close friendship the Duchess once remarked ‘I really love him and I always have’ (D. Cavendish, quoted in S. Moss, ‘The Duchess of Devonshire: ‘When you are very old, you cry over some things, but not a lot’, The Guardian, 12 September 2010). She would visit him while in London, sometimes leaving him eggs on the doorstep which she said, ‘He seems to like’ (D. Cavendish, quoted in S. Moss, ‘The Duchess of Devonshire: ‘When you are very old, you cry over some things, but not a lot’, The Guardian, 12 September 2010). They were introduced in the 1940s by the Duke’s sister, Lady Anne Tree, and shared the same circle of friends revolving around Ann Fleming, the wife of Ian Fleming. The Duke spotted the genius of Freud early on, long before he became known as Britain’s greatest living painter, and became a major collector of his works. The Devonshires became part of Freud’s coterie of sitters: he painted both of the Duke’s sisters before producing portraits of the Duke, the Duchess, and their son Peregrine. Significantly, Freud was the Duke and Duchesses first house guest when they moved into Chatsworth in 1959, around the time that this portrait of their son was completed. ‘Lucian Freud is very good company, very stimulating company’ Peregrine once said. ‘He is very lovely and has a number of good friends who he has been friends with for a long time’ (P. Cavendish, quoted in L. Jury, ‘The late duke, a £1.5m Freud painting, and a friendship that lasted 50 years’, The Guardian, 1 July 2004).
Freud is famed for focusing his portraiture on those people who form part of his family or his close circle of friends, often returning to paint the same subject again. They are people whom he knows and is able to scrutinise with a profound knowledge and familiarity, so that he might come closer to the truth about the character of the sitter. Peregrine himself sat for Freud on a second occasion in the summer of 1962, although the painting was never finished. Head of a Boy, despite its modesty, effortlessly captures a vivid sense of the life and character of Peregrine, the son of arguably two of Freud’s oldest and dearest friends.