Lucian Freud gave the young Duke of Devonshire some gambling tips when he posed for the painter in his “horrible” London studio in the 1950s STEPHAN AGOSTINI/Getty ImagesOne was an artist on the fringes of respectable London society, racking up gambling debts with the Kray twins. The other was an Etonian schoolboy of rich aristocratic lineage and heir to one of England’s finest homes. Together they hid from debt collectors in a scruffy Paddington flat. The 12th Duke of Devonshire yesterday disclosed his schoolboy escapades with Lucian Freud, the once-penniless portrait painter who became one of the country’s most-admired artists. The duke, 72, who is custodian of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire and its priceless artistic treasures, disclosed how he had been in Freud’s “scruffy and horrible” west London studio for a portrait-sitting when “services people” arrived to cut off the artist’s electricity.

Source: The Times November 29, 2016 00:07 UTC