£3.9m bidding frenzy for Freud

A nude portrait of Kate Moss by renowned artist Lucian Freud was sold for £3.9million yesterday.

Auctioned at Christie's in London, it went to an anonymous telephone bidder.

There was speculation that the painting was snapped up by an American collector, or possibly the 31-year-old supermodel herself.

She is believed to have failed in a bid to buy it last time it was under the hammer.

Yesterday's sale would have been a record for the artist had another Freud painting - Red Haired Man on a Chair - not sold minutes earlier for a total of £4,152,000, nearly a million more than his previous highest price.

The Kate Moss work - showing her reclining on a bed and wearing nothing but a distant look - was the result of a series of sittings at Freud's West London studio.

At the time she was in the early stages of pregnancy with her daughter Lila Grace, now two. The painting is virtually life-sized, showing her a shade under her natural 5ft 7in.

In one interview Freud, 82, said he was interested in her not as a beautiful model, 'merely as an animal', adding: 'One of the most exciting things is seeing through the skin, to the blood and veins and markings.'

But during furious bidding at Christie's London saleroom it was beaten by his 1962-3 Red-Haired Man On A Chair, sold for £4,152,000.