Bacon's view of friend set to fetch £7.5m

The earliest Francis Bacon portrait of his friend Henrietta Moraes, owned by one of their circle of friends since it was painted, is to be sold.

Portrait of Henrietta Moraes is expected take up to £7.5 million at auction at Christie's in London on 19 October.

It was bought in 1969 by Garech Browne, of the Guinness brewing dynasty, just after it was painted. He has kept it at his home in the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.

Moraes, a socialite who sat for several artists, inscribed the reverse of the canvas.

Browne, who went on to be a patron of Irish arts, knew both Freud and Bacon from childhood and Freud's first wife, Caroline Blackwood, was Browne's cousin.

Pilar Ordovas, of Christie's, described it as "a wonderfully appealing painting".