Lucian Freud’s Portrait of His Daughter Debuts at Auction With an Estimate Over $18 Million

A portrait Lucian Freud painted of his daughter Isobel in 1997 will make its auction debut on March 1 at Sotheby’s London, with an estimate of between £15 million and £20 million (US$18 million and US$24 million).

Painted over a year with more than 70 sittings, the portrait depicts Isobel Boyt, known as Ib to her family, reading Marcel Proust’s 4,000-page novel Remembrance of Things Past, wearing a loose dress, with her bare feet up on a chair and the book in her lap.

The portrait, aptly titled Ib Reading, was acquired by a private collector shortly after its creation and has remained in the same collection since. It was last seen publicly more than 20 years ago in an exhibition in New York, according to Sotheby’s.

The portrait will be offered as a highlight of Sotheby’s evening auction of modern and contemporary art.

Other star lots of the sale include Pablo Picasso’s portrait of his daughter, Maya, formerly owned by Gianni Versace and estimated to sell for between £12 million and £20 million; a newly restituted painting by Wassily Kandinsky, Murnau mit Kirche II, which is expected to fetch in the region of £35 million; and one of Gerhard Richter’s Abstract masterpieces, Abstraktes Bild, estimated in excess of £20 million.

Freud’s Ib Reading is one of five painted portraits of his daughter. The first was Large Interior, Paddington (1968-69), which was made when Isobel was just seven years old. The portrait is now in the collection of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, Spain, which is hosting a major retrospective of the artist, Lucian Freud: New Perspectives, until June.

In 1992, Freud also painted Isobel with the father of her children, while she was pregnant with her youngest daughter Alice.

“My father never chose the pose of his sitters. He would often make suggestions, but he never said, ‘I want you wearing this and sitting there’. There were limited possibilities with the studio too,” Isobel, 60, said in a statement through Sotheby’s.

Reading the novel Remembrance of Things Past while sitting for her father was her own choice, she said in the statement. “I wished to read. It was something I normally wouldn’t have time to do with three young children. It was an opportunity,” she said.

Freud’s auction record was set by his painting Large Interior W11 (After Watteau), 1981-83, which sold from the collection of Paul Allen for US$86.3 million last November at Christie’s in New York.

Porsche car deliveries fell 10% in 2025 as demand was hit by a slowdown in luxury spending in China and as it ceased production of its 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman models through the year.

The German luxury sports-car maker said Friday that it delivered 279,449 cars in the year, down from 310,718 in 2024.

The company had a tumultuous year as it contended with a stuttering transition to electric vehicles and a tough Chinese market, while the Trump administration’s automotive tariffs presented a further headwind.

Deliveries in its largest sales region of North America were virtually flat at 86,229, but continued challenges in China meant deliveries in the country dropped 26% to 41,938 vehicles.

Automakers have faced intense competition in China, sparking a prolonged price war as rivals cut prices to win customers, while a lengthy property market slump and economic-growth concerns in the country has also led to buyers pulling back on luxury spending.

“Key reasons for the decline remain the challenging market conditions, particularly in the luxury segment, and the very intense competition in the Chinese market, especially for all-electric models,” the company said.

Other German brands including Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have all recently reported that the challenging Chinese market hit demand last year.

In Europe, Porsche deliveries fell 13% to 66,340 cars excluding its home market of Germany, while German deliveries dropped 16%.

The company cut guidance several times last year as it warned of hits from U.S. import tariffs, investments in new combustion engines and hybrid models amid the slow uptake of EVs, and the competitive situation in China.

Porsche also last year announced plans to scale back its EV ambitions and instead expand its lineup with more gas-powered and plug-in hybrid models than it had originally planned.

However, in its statement Friday, the company said it increased its share of electrified-vehicle deliveries in the year. Around 34% of vehicles delivered worldwide were electrified, an increase of 7.4 percentage points on year, with about 22% all-electric vehicles and 12% plug-in hybrids.

That leaves its global share of fully-electric vehicles at the upper end of its target range of 20% to 22% for 2025.

In Europe, for the first time in 2025, more electrified vehicles than purely combustion engine vehicles were delivered.

The Macan topped the delivery charts in the year, while the 911 reached a record high with 51,583 deliveries worldwide, it said.

Porsche said it is investing in its three-pronged powertrain strategy and will continue to respond to increasing demand for personalization requests from customers.

“We have a clear focus for 2026,” Sales and Marketing Chief Matthias Becker said. “We want to manage supply and demand in accordance with our ‘value over volume’ strategy.

“At the same time, we are realistically planning our volume for 2026 following the end of production of the 718 and Macan with combustion engines.”

Lucian Freud’s Portrait of His Daughter Debuts at Auction With an Estimate Over $18 Million

The sports-car maker delivered 279,449 cars last year, down from 310,718 in 2024.