Lucian had been remarkably fast out of the starting blocks in his teens and early twenties (the Museum of Modern Art in New York had bought a picture in the 1940s), but then there was a very long period when his paintings sold only to a small number of English people and he enjoyed almost no international recognition. In the early days of their relationship Freud was encouraged by Bacon and eventually he followed his more reckless, free-style approach, abandoning his Germanic tightness of line and fine surfaces.

When Acquavella took him on, he said bluntly: ‘Lucian look. I’m an art dealer. I’m not an accountant. I’m not a nursemaid and if you need any of those things you’ve got the wrong guy. But you paint them and I’ll sell them.

The collectors of his work were mainly English aristocrats like the Devonshires or Colin Tennant, who were willing to pay between £5,000 and £25,000 per painting. ‘It doesn’t seem a great deal now but it was then,’ said d’Offay. There were one or two early purchases by the Tate and other public collections in the 1950s, but that petered out. Certainly compared to Bacon he seemed an artist in the second division. On top of that, dealers considered Lucian difficult as he would sell works on the side, or slip them off quietly to bookmakers to settle a debt.

D’Offay’s relationship with Freud had started in the 1960s through an introduction by a bright young art expert called James Kirkman, the son of a general, who worked for Marlborough Fine Art and looked after Lucian there. Marlborough, part-owned by the Duke of Beaufort, was the most prestigious British contemporary gallery, representing Francis Bacon, Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, as well as Lucian. But Lucian felt ignored and sidelined compared to his friend Bacon, who in 1962 had a show at the Tate Gallery and was rapidly gaining a global reputation. ‘Lucian was by no means a star then. He was actually thought to be something of a has-been,’ said Kirkman. ‘No one was really interested in figurative art, especially what he did. Pop art and kinetic art was what modern art collectors desired. All that passed Lucian by, making him seem traditional, even old-fashioned, but still with an ability to shock with his raw nudes. He was doing pictures that were considered less attractive, that were not really appealing to anyone. It sounds strange now but that was the reality and how he was received and perceived.

There was one slight hitch. Lucian owed money to a Northern Irish bookie, and asked Acquavella to sort it out. He had often asked his dealers to sort out similar financial headaches in his life. Lucian said that the bookie’s name was Alfie McLean, and that he had bought many of his paintings. Acquavella duly arranged lunch with McLean, whom he recognised at once as ‘the Big Man’ in Lucian’s portrait of that name from the 1970s. ‘When I sat down with Alfie McLean at the end of the meal I asked what Lucian owed him. I was thinking of some preposterous figure like £100,000. When he spurted out £2.7 million I was blown away.