Artwork from the European branches of the collapsed US investment bank Lehman Brothers will go under the hammer in London next month in a two-million-pound auction, administrators said Sunday.

Works by Lucian Freud and Gary Hume will figure at the sale at Christie’s auction house on September 29, which comes two years after the bank’s demise.

“We think that there are many people around the world who would like to acquire some art with a Lehman connection,” said administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Lucian Freud is universally acclaimed as Britain’s most famous and expensive living artist.

A Freud painting when it goes on the market is now guaranteed a seven figure reserve price and in May, the portrait “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” sold to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich for $33 million, setting a new world record for a living artist !

However, the 85-year-old artist was recently informed that one of his subjects, Bernard Breslauer, a famous New York antiques book dealer – who once bought a Gutenberg Bible – had wrecked his portrait.

A classic Lucian Freud portrait of a rather plump lady, is predicted to break the world auction record for most expensive painting by a living artist.

The elegantly constructed masterpiece is titled “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” named after the profession of the sitter.

The painting which was completed in 1995 is expected to fetch $35 million (£18 million) at Christie’s, exceeding the current record of $23.56 million, held since last year by the American artist Jeff Koons.