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A nude portrait of the Soho model Henrietta Moraes by Francis Bacon has sold for £21m in London.

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A nude portrait of the Soho model Henrietta Moraes by Francis Bacon has sold for £21m in London.

Stashed away in a private collection, the painting of Henrietta Moraes by Francis Bacon has not been publicly seen for 15 years.

The £21.3m price the painting was bought for by an anonymous bidder was over £1m than Christie's top estimate.

The current record for a Bacon original was set in 2008 at Sotheby's in New York, when one of the artist's Triptychs sold for nearly £55m.

The price paid for the Bacon nude was one of the highest won by a work of post-war contemporary art in the history of the auction house.

Francis Outred, of Christie's, said the painting sold this week was 'one of the most seductive and sexually-charged' he had ever seen.

Bacon painted over a dozen portraits of Moraes who also posed for the late Lucien Freud.

Irish-born figurative painter Francis Bacon was best known for his bold, graphic and emotional paintings.

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