British Council

This is a portrait of Freud's first wife Kitty, daughter of the sculptor Jacob Epstein. They had not been married long. She is a modern-day Venus, clutching the flower that's sacred to her, and sitting in the broken-caned chair rigid with self-consciousness. The rose she clutches is said to be the 'Peace Rose', developed shortly after the end of the war. Kitty is examined hair by hair, freckle by freckle, the petals matching her lips, the stripes on her jumper hugging the contour of her body (the dots within the green stripes were put there to accentuate the greenness, a technique Freud learned from advertising). Recognised as the masterpiece of Freud's early career, this mesmerising portrait (large by the standards of Freud's other portraits) bears all the hallmarks of a 'great Freud painting': the precarious air that all his portraits wear, the sense of vulnerability, the scrutiny that brings out what is most individual and human about his sitters, and thereby what makes them unique. Though it is sometimes said that Freud's portraits are cruel in their relentlessness, the portraits are in fact a tremendous testimony to Freud's interest and concentration on his sitters, recreating them as if they were in the room through the intensity with which he looks at them.