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72 LUCIAN FREUD (1922-2011) Bella, 1987 Etching. Initialed in pencil and numbered from the AP edition of XV Aside from the edition of 50, on BFK Rives paper, published by James Kirkman, London, and Brooke Alexander, New York The sitter is the artist's daughter Bella Freud 69 x 57 cm (27 1/8 x 22 ½ in) 77 x 68.5 cm (30 1/3 x 27 in) Provenance: Osborne Samuel, London Literature: Craig Hartley, Etchings of Lucian Freud: A Catalogue Raisonne 1946- 1995, 1995, no.30 Craig Hartley, Freud and Auerbach Recent Work, Print Quarterly, Vol. 9 No. 1 (March 1992), p. 13 (Fig. 12) Starr Figura (ed.), Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007), Cat. 31, p. 61 £ 29,500 / $ 41,000 Lucian Freud made his first etching in Paris in 1946, using the wash-basin in his hotel room as an acid bath. Five small-scale etchings date from this decade, following which Freud ceased printmaking for thirty-four years. Thereafter, beguiled by its 'element of danger and mystery', he steadily created an impressive contribution to the medium. 1 Bella (1987), a portrait of his daughter, is defined by dense hatching, marking the head's weight against the pillow, its wisps of hair and the face's contours. Freud sought further contrast within the image, however. Giving the printer a proof shaded with grey wash to indicate where ink should be left on the plate after wiping, the etching was reproofed until he was satisfied. Craig Hartley describes the result as 'seductively tonal', one of Freud's most beautiful portraits. 2 Elsewhere, through the use of generic titles, Freud sought to deflect attention from his sitters' identity. He remarked, Many people are inclined to look at portraits not for the art in them but to see how they resemble people. This seems to me a profound misunderstanding.3 Portrait Head (2001) is more delicate than Bella in its use of line, its lack of background detail placing the strongly characterised face in relief. The sitter appears contemplative, perhaps weary, an effect emphasised compositionally by the downward pull of her scarf, loose hair and shadowed gaze. Reviewing MoMA's exhi- bition in 2008, which juxtaposed Freud's portrait paintings with his etchings, Donald Kuspit noted the latter's 'rough emotional urgency' and tendency to be 'more individual - more uniquely themselves'. 4 1. Lucian Freud, in Starr Figura (ed.), Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008), p. 15. 2. Craig Hartley, 'Freud and Auerbach Recent Work', Print Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1 (March 1992), p. 5.; also Hartley, The etchings of Lucian Freud: a catalogue raisonné 1946-1995 (Marlborough Graphics, 1995), p. 22. 3. Freud, in Freud at Work: Photographs by Bruce Bernard and David Dawson (Jonathan Cape, 2006), p. 32. 4. Donald Kuspit, 'Lucian Freud: Museum of Modern Art/Marlborough Graph- ics', Artforum International, Vol. 26, No. 7 (March 2008), p. 360-61.