Stay up to date with notifications from The IndependentNotifications can be managed in browser preferences.Jump to contentThank you for registeringPlease refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged inAllNewsSportCultureLifestyleLucian Freud's final painting of benefits supervisor Sue Tilley, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, is estimated to sell for up to £35m at a Sotheby's auction in June. The artwork, painted between 1995 and 1996, is considered a defining masterpiece by art critics and will be offered for sale for the first time. Sue Tilley, the subject, expressed amusement at the painting's high valuation, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today: “I think, ‘How can that be possible when I’ve never got any money myself?’”This painting is part of a series of large canvases Freud created of Tilley, with another portrait, Benefits Supervisor Resting, selling for a record £35.9m in 2015. Tilley, who was in her late thirties when the work was painted, said the paintings show “all those skinny girls that big girls can do well as well”.In full‘Big girls can do well’ says Lucian Freud muse as portrait could fetch £35mThank you for registeringPlease refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in

Sue Tilley was working in an unemployment office when she met artist Lucian Freud. His paintings of her in the 1990s are now famous, and very valuable.

The painting, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, will go up for sale for the first time as part of The Lewis Collection from Sotheby's in June.

Sue Tilley was working in an unemployment office when she met artist Lucian Freud

Freud painted benefits supervisor Sue Tilley in numerous works between 1993 and 1996

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En oljemålning av socialbidragshandläggaren Sue Tilley, som blev känd efter att den brittiska konstnären Lucian Freud avbildade henne naken…

Sue Tilley, the 60-something retired benefits supervisor and beloved sitter for Lucian Freud, has an uncanny meeting with her oil-on-canvas image before it heads to auction next…