Head of a Woman Laughing

The present work depicts Lady Caroline Blackwood, the artist's second wife. Blackwood, the eldest daughter of the 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and the brewery heiress Maureen Guinness, first met Freud in 1949. In 1952, Blackwood and Freud eloped to Paris and then married a year later back in London. Blackwood threw herself into Freud's bohemian lifestyle and inner circle that included the artists Francis Bacon and John Minton. Freud’s paintings of Blackwood are widely regarded as some of his most tender works.