Sue Tilley, 69, the former unemployment officer who became one of modern art's most recognisable models, sat before Lucian Freud's monumental painting Sleeping by the Lion Carpet at Sotheby's in London on Thursday, May 28, 2026. The 7½-foot nude is expected to fetch £25 million to £35 million ($33–47 million) when it goes under the hammer on June 24. Tilley told The Associated Press she has never seen any of the millions her portraits have earned at auction , but insists she has no regrets.

Why 69-year-old Sue Tilley 'doesn't regret a thing' about the millions she never saw

Tilley worked in an unemployment office when she met Freud through her friend, the late performance artist Leigh Bowery, according to the AP. The painter created four monumental portraits of her in the 1990s, with Sleeping by the Lion Carpet—painted in 1996—being the last. An earlier work, Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, sold for $33.6 million in 2008, at the time a record for a living artist. tilley recalls being thrilled to appear in the Guinness Book of Records, though it referred to her as 'Benefits Supervisor' rather than by name.

The £25–35 million question: Who will buy the 'magnum opus'?

The painting comes from the collection of British billionaire Joe Lewis, majority owner of Tottenham Hotspur. Sotheby's Europe chairman Oliver Barker called the work Freud's 'magnum opus,' adding that 'the market knows, and it's very savvy, it wants to go for the best of the best.' The sale is part of a larger auction on June 24–25 that also includes works by Henri Matisse, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schiele, collectively valued at over £150 million ($201 million).. Whether Sleeping by the Lion Carpet will surpass the $86 million record set by Large Interior, W11 in 2022 remains the central open question.

From Abramovich to Lewis: The shifting ownership of Freud's masterpieces

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping was bought in 2008 by Roman Abramovich, the then-owner of Chelsea Football Club who was later sanctioned by the U.K. after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The current sale's provenance—from Lewis, a billionaire who has faced legal troubles of his own—adds another layer to the market for Freud's work. The AP noted that Tilley, now retired and living on England's south coast, said Freud gave her 'a couple of etchings ,' which she sold to go on holiday.

What went unseen: The 'dirty old paintbrush' and the stories of a bygone Bohemia

Tilley told the AP she loved the messy energy of Freud's studio, where he would make drinks 'with a dirty old paintbrush' and paint was 'absolutely everywhere .' She also relished his tales of a younger Bohemian era—'roaring around in a Rolls-Royce open top with Cecil Beaton and Marlene Dietrich.' The portraits were products of months of sittings, with Tilley noting that while lying on a sofa 'looks comfortable, after a while it got a bit painful.' She remains unbothered by her image ending up in the hands of the ultra-wealthy. 'I'm not realy vain,' she said. 'Sometimes I get out of bed in the morning, and I look at my legs and go, Oh, they look just like that painting .'