Jun 27, 2026
Sue Tilley, 69, had always considered herself ordinary. She worked in an employment office, picking up extra shifts at a London nightclub and never imagined disrobing to pose for an artist who would one day turn her nude portrait into a painting that would go on to sell for $39 million.
But that’s exactly what happened.
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The nearly eight-foot-tall canvas, titled “Sleeping by the Lion Carpet,” fetched £29.3 million ($38.8 million) at Sotheby’s London, compared to original projections of $34 million.
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The price tag makes it the third-most expensive work ever sold at an auction by the celebrated British artist, Lucian Freud, grandson of famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. It was auctioned off by British billionaire Joe Lewis, who also set a record for the most valuable single-owner sale in Europe, earning £296.3 million ($392.6 million USD) the same night.
“Sleeping by the Lion Carpet” had been in Lewis’ collection since he got it from Acquavella Galleries, Freud’s New York rep, in 1996.
“This was a perfect example of what London can do,” international contemporary art dealer Thaddaeus Ropac told the New York Times of the auction. “This was the best sale we’ve had here in years. It showed that if you offer great quality material people will go the extra mile.”
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Tilley herself reflected on the surreal attention surrounding the artwork depicting her naked body three decades ago.
“Mona Lisa wasn’t alive when she became famous — but I am,” she said.
A chance introduction changed everything
When Freud first asked Tilley to sit for him in the early 1990s, she was just 35 years old and supervising a London job center. She also worked occasional shifts at Taboo, the legendary nightclub founded by Australian-born artist and performance designer Leigh Bowery.
Bowery had already modeled for Freud and believed Tilley would make an ideal sitter because of her willingness to embrace the unconventional. He introduced the pair, setting in motion a collaboration that would ultimately span several paintings.
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Tilley told the Wall Street Journal that their first meeting took place over lunch at London’s River Cafe, where she could “feel his eyes boring into [her] the whole meal.” While she agreed to pose for him because of his fun and comforting character, she admitted to feeling “grotesque” in the images. She also recalled overhearing art aficionados calling her a “poor fat woman” and never expected that a painting of her body would bring in the big bucks.
But Freud was already internationally known for his intensely realistic portraits that celebrated the human body in all its perfect imperfections. Unlike many portrait artists, he rejected idealization and conventional beauty standards, painting subjects exactly how he perceived them. He became known for portraying bodies with striking honesty, challenging preconceived notions of beauty and embracing body diversity long before the body positivity movement gained momentum.
And the market for his work has remained remarkably resilient long after his death in 2011.
“The sexually loaded, penetrating gaze was part of his weaponry, but his art addressed the lives of individuals, whether life models or royalty, with delicacy and disturbing corporeality,” reads his obituary in The Guardian.
His sessions were famously demanding, often lasting hundreds of hours over many months. The result was a body of work that collectors now regard as among the defining achievements of postwar British art.
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Why Freud’s paintings command millions
Freud’s paintings rarely appear for sale, and when major works do reach auction, wealthy collectors tend to compete aggressively for them. The newly sold “Sleeping by the Lion Carpet,” painted between 1995 and 1996, is considered one of Freud’s finest large-scale nude portraits. It belongs to the celebrated series featuring Tilley, whose relaxed, natural pose became one of the artist’s most recognizable images.
The sale also illustrates a fascinating aspect of the fine-art market: While the value of masterpieces can soar into the tens of millions, the people depicted in them often receive no financial windfall once the artwork changes hands — unless they’d retained some sort of ownership stake.
Freud paid Tilley just £20 a day (about $35 USD) at the time, and later upped it to £33 (about $50 USD at the time), according to the Wall Street Journal. Still, Tilley has become inseparable from Freud’s legacy. And nearly three decades since she first posed naked for Freud, she remains amused by her role as his muse and unanticipated fame, even without the fortune.
Unlike Leonardo da Vinci’s famous sitter, she’s still here to witness the world’s fascination with Freud’s depiction of her bare body — and the eye-popping prices it continues to command.
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AnnaMarie is a weekend editor for Moneywise.
