Lucian Freud’s ‘Four Eggs on a Plate’ fetches almost £1m

Four Eggs on a Plate by artist Lucian Freud, which he had given as a gift to the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, sold for almost £1 million (€1.4 million) – 10 times the low estimate – at Sotheby's in London on Wednesday evening.

Seven bidders battled for the postcard-size little painting – estimated at £100,000-£150,000 – and the winner paid £989,000.

Francis Bacon's Self-Portrait, 1975 made £15.3 million (£10 million-£15 million); and, his triptych titled Three Studies for Self-Portrait, 1980 made £14.7 million (£10 million-£15 million).

But the top Bacon lot – Study for a Pope I (1961) estimated at £25 million -£35 million failed to sell. (See "Auction Results" below for prices achieved the previous day at Christie's in London for other Francis Bacon paintings).

Sotheby’s said the evening sale had achieved total sales of just over £130 million , its highest-ever figure for an auction of contemporary art in Europe and affirmed “ the pivotal position of London within the international art market.”

Perhaps appropriately in a market seemingly awash with money the top lot was Andy Warhol's One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate), which made £20.9 million (estimated at £13 million-£18 million).