Auction puts its heads together for sale of Freud and Auerbach works

Boy's Head by Lucian Freud was among a series of contemporary paintings up for auction at Sotheby's in London last night, joined under the hammer by Jean-Michel Basquiat's Spike and Frank Auerbach's Head of Helen Gillespie II.

One of the earlier works by Freud, who died in July this year, his portrait dates from 1952 and was expected to go for up to £4m – a considerable sum, but far from the £17.2m record that Freud holds for the most expensive artwork by a British artist.