This extraordinary Francis Bacon triptych from the William S. Paley Collection is one of the true masterpieces of his career and marks the first inception of his painting of Henrietta Moraes, who became one of his most famous and preferred sitters.

Held in stewardship by the Museum of Modern Art in New York for the last 30 years, it is coming to market for the first time since William S. Paley acquired it from the Marlborough Gallery.

Francis Bacon was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures.

To learn more about one of the great bohemian muses of the 1950’s and 1960’s, Henrietta Moraes, please click here: https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/…