Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud

Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud was a 1967 oil-on-canvas painting by the Irish-born artist Francis Bacon, which he destroyed before it could leave his studio, though it was photographed and is highly regarded by art critics.

Bacon was a ruthless self critic, and often abandoned paintings mid-work, or slashed finished canvases; something he often later regretted.

The painting is the first to show his lover George Dyer clothed, wearing a jacket, shirt and tie.

The portrait is one of the few to show Dyer as people other than Bacon might have seen him in his prime; charming, engaging and physically attractive.

Both men are set in what appears to be a pub, and before heavy green curtains reminiscent of those in Bacon's studio.