Lucian Freud

Depicting the dozing whippet of Lucian Freud’s studio assistant and friend David Dawson, Eli (2002) is the largest and most impressive dog portrait in Freud’s printed oeuvre; the other two being of his own whippet Pluto (1988) and Pluto, aged Twelve (2000). This great depiction of a dog is executed with the same  - or perhaps greater? -  tenderness and attention to detail than the artist’s portraits of his friends and family, and reveals the artist’s deep affection for the animal. The present impression is only the second to be offered at auction since its creation thirteen years ago, when the artist was already eighty years old.