Woman recalls posing for Freud after £25m art sale

Woman recalls posing for Freud after £25m art saleImage source, Sotheby'sImage caption, Sue Tilley sat for the portrait for several months and worked with Freud for yearsBySarah Gorrell, BBC Radio Sussex and Tanya Gupta, South EastPublished16 minutes agoA portrait by Lucian Freud featuring a woman from Sussex has sold at auction for £25m.The artwork, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, went under the hammer at Sotheby's, with the sitter Sue Tilley describing it as showing her in "my glorious naked bigness squashed into a chair with a lion carpet behind me".Tilley, who lives in St Leonards, spent months sitting for the work in Freud's studio in London's Holland Park. She described his studio as "really shabby", with "all sorts of rubbish on the floor" and even "a Rodin being used as a doorstop".The portrait, which had a sale estimate of £25m to £30m, was sold for a total of £29,260,000, including the buyer's premium and the final bid of £25m. Image source, Sotheby'sImage caption, The sitter said the artwork showed her in her "glorious naked bigness"Tilley said the portrait took about nine months to complete, with sittings typically lasting from early morning until mid-afternoon several days a week – but including long restaurant lunches with champagne.Despite the high price achieved at auction, Tilley said she never received a share of proceeds from the painting."I've never got actually paid any money from the portrait selling, but I've got little jobs and bits and bobs, and Sotheby's were very generous to me for helping them out," she said."So I have earned money along the way, but nowhere near £25m."Image source, Sotheby'sImage caption, The final bid was £25m and the cost including buyer's premium was more than £29mShe also rejected being described as the artist's "muse"."I hate that word because I imagine a very thin little pers...