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Head Of Ib - Signed Print by Lucian Freud 1988 - MyArtBroker

Head Of Ib
Signed Print

Lucian Freud

£9,000-£13,500Value Indicator

$18,000-$27,000 Value Indicator

$16,000-$24,000 Value Indicator

¥80,000-¥120,000 Value Indicator

10,500-16,000 Value Indicator

$90,000-$130,000 Value Indicator

¥1,740,000-¥2,610,000 Value Indicator

$11,000-$17,000 Value Indicator

-3% AAGR

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: 40

Year: 1988

Size: H 36cm x W 28cm

Signed: Yes

Format: Signed Print

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Track auction value trend

The value of Lucian Freud’s Head Of Ib (signed) is estimated to be worth between £9,000 and £13,500. This etching print, created in 1988, has shown consistent value growth, with an average annual growth rate of 2%. This work has an auction history of 17 total sales since its entry to the market in March 2010. Over the past 12 months, the average selling price was £13,000, across 1 total sales. In the last five years, the hammer price has ranged from £7,480 in January 2023 to £13,629 in May 2023, with an average return to the seller of £9,664. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 40.

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Auction Results

Auction DateAuction HouseLocation
Hammer Price
Return to Seller
Buyer Paid
Sotheby's London United Kingdom
March 2024Christie's London United Kingdom
May 2023Smith & Singer, Woollahra Australia
January 2023Wright United States
March 2019Christie's London United Kingdom
April 2017Sotheby's London United Kingdom
January 2015Phillips London United Kingdom

Meaning & Analysis

Having one of Britain's most acclaimed painters as a father was not without its tensions for Lucian Freud's children. Though Freud was, indeed, a somewhat distant father, many of his children returned to model for him to experience that father-child bond missing in their childhoods. Isobel ("Ib") Boyt, daughter of Lucian and Suzy Boyt, was one of these children. Unlike the more tender representations of his other children, like Esther for example, Head Of Ib has a distinctively forlorn character. The sitter looks melancholically out of the etching's frame, and Freud has handled her flesh with such attention to texture that we can almost see her straining while under her father's probing gaze. For Ib, sitting for her father wasn't always the freeing and intimate experience her siblings felt. In fact, sometimes it was unendurable, as she once remarked: "Each time I did a picture with him I swore I'd never do it again, but then I do because it is a way of having a relationship with my dad as well as there is a part of me that if he wants to paint me I am quite flattered."

Over the years Ib returned to sit for her father, despite her reluctance when she was sat in the studio. She modelled for other etched portraits, like Ib, and was even painted with her husband while she was pregnant in Ib And Her Husband (1992). In most of Freud's representations of Ib she is usually asleep, perhaps when there was the most peace between them. Head Of Ib however is a rare instance when Freud pictures his daughter awake, and the tension between them is unavoidable in his loaded marks on the etching plate. Freud is famed for his brutally honest perception of his subjects, but with Head Of Ib we see not only the way he truly saw his daughter, but a frank confrontation of himself as a father.

  • Famed for his representations of the human form, Lucian Freud is one of the 20th Century's most celebrated artists. The grandson of psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, the artist confronts the psychological depth and bare complexities of the human body. From his early works to his celebrated nudes and portraits, Freud's canvases resonate with an almost tactile intensity, capturing the essence of his subjects with unwavering honesty. Freud painted only himself, close friends, and family, which floods his work with an intimacy that is felt by the viewer. His pursuit of honesty through portraiture shaped the trajectory of figurative art in the 20th century.

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