Rat man: the sudden death of Lucian Freud’s iconic muse and model

It is quite the oddest of the works by the late Lucian Freud.

Painted from 1977 to 1978 in Freud’s studio in Holland Park, west London, the picture is neatly captured by its title, Naked Man with Rat.

And now the naked man in the picture, who proudly called himself the Rat Man, has died, at 78. Freud himself died in 2011, aged 88.

Raymond Jones was a painter, part-time interior decorator and a friend of Freud’s. When he agreed to be painted, with the live rat only inches from his genitals, he also became a part of international art history. He was Freud’s first model for a male nude painting.

It was some consolation to Raymond that the rat was drunk during the many hours of sittings. Freud being the stylish man about town that he was, the rat didn’t drink ordinary plonk. Instead, he was given large glasses of the finest champagne, Veuve Clicquot, mixed with half a crushed sleeping pill in a dog bowl.

Knocked out by this lethal cocktail, the rat would doze for hours on end, day after day, on Raymond’s upper thigh. But then it would wake up. Thank God, the rat didn’t head straight in the direction of Raymond’s groin.

“It would wake two or three hours later, starting to flap its tail and all that,” Raymond told Geordie Greig, The Independent editor, in his book, Breakfast with Lucian: A Portrait of the Artist. “Lucian would get hold of it but sometimes it would jump from out of his fingers. That was the funny bit, it running round the studio behind a canvas and plants.

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“We had to catch the bugger. Once we did, it would go into Lucian’s kitchen and be given some cheese and then some more champagne and, after a quarter of an hour, it was nodding off again. We would go back to the studio and carry on for another hour.”

Freud, who borrowed the rat from his friend Katie McEwen, said to Raymond, “I want you to sit in the nude. You’ll be the first man I’ve painted in oil and I am confident I can do a major picture of a man naked…”

Freud paused before adding, “… with a rat. Would you mind being naked with a rat? That’s more important.”

Raymond said, heroically, “Oh, not at all, Lucian. I wouldn’t mind one little bit but how will you get it to behave on my thigh?”

Freud said, “Leave that to me.”

Raymond, quite understandably, felt a little bit surprised when he saw the rat: “There was nothing said about it being an odd picture to paint; nothing about the fact that the rat is near my testicles. This was never discussed with Lucian.

“The only thing I asked Lucian was, ‘Is it necessary right from the beginning of the picture that I should be holding the rat? Can’t the rat come in later?”

Lucian said, “No, because it is the whole emotional attitude that matters. Being with the rat would affect the whole portrait. If the rat was not there, your mind would be working differently.”

So Raymond calmly went along with nine months of sittings with the rodent alcoholic. There were some breaks. Most artists take a tea break. Lucian Freud took sex breaks.

Raymond recalls, “Sometimes there was a knock on the studio door at Holland Park and a woman would come in and go straight into the bathroom. Then they would go at it, bang, bang, bang.”

Lucian would say to Raymond, “I’m just taking a break. I won’t be that long.”

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Raymond remembers, “More often than not, there was then the bang, bang, bang noise of her being shagged, not on his bed but always behind the bathroom door.”

Lucian would have a bath after his exertions, wandering back into the studio naked. He said to Raymond, “I’ve just had a bath to settle myself down and now we’ll carry on.”

Even then, the sittings with Freud weren’t quite as odd as they might have been. Raymond said, “Lucian once said to me, and I almost jumped off the sofa when he did, ‘If you’d been a woman, I would have gone with you, but you are not and I’m not into that.’ I was just a piece of meat on the sofa and that was it.”

Freud first met Raymond when he bought a Freud portrait of the East End burglar, George Dyer, who became Francis Bacon’s lover after breaking into his studio in 1963. As Greig recalls, Freud found Raymond “quirky, funny and difficult to pigeonhole”.

Raymond joined Freud’s circle of artist friends, including Francis Bacon, Michael Andrews and Frank Auerbach, and often joined them for lunch at their favourite fish restaurant, Wheeler’s in Soho.

Freud asked Raymond to sit for a portrait and then borrowed money off him. In return, Freud said he would give him the portrait, a tiny picture of Raymond’s head, three inches by four. Freud did another portrait that he claimed he then destroyed – although Raymond believes the portrait was sold or given to Freud’s girlfriend, Jane Willoughby.

Freud did then paint a second portrait of Raymond, which he gave to him. Raymond sold it a decade later to buy a house.

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Raymond also sat for a double portrait, Naked Man with His Friend (1978-80), with his platonic companion John, with whom he lived for over 35 years.

Greig says: “It was another picture ahead of its time with a suggestion of affection and intimacy between the two men that hinted that they may be lovers.

“It is a scene that poses many questions about their identity and relationship. Both naked portraits of Raymond were key to Lucian fearlessly marking his territory as a cold-eyed observer. They became crucial images in his canon.”

But, for Raymond, the gripping element was the pyjamas John wore: “Lucian provided them and said they belonged to his grandfather Sigmund [Freud, the father of psychoanalysis].”

Raymond, born in 1944 in Radcliffe, Manchester, was a wandering soul, living in the twilight zone of 20th-century artistic bohemia.

He began his working life as a painter-decorator. When Freud first painted Raymond, he asked him to help make his new flat into a workable studio.

Raymond remembered, “He said I will get plastic bags and we will knock this wall down.” I said, “You can’t do that. It might be a structural wall.“

He just replied, “Sod that – it’s coming down.”

And so, for two nights, they demolished the walls and, when the dust settled, Freud started to paint him.

Raymond graduated from painting and decorating to becoming a painter in the artistic sense. From an isolated farm in Wales, he decamped to Rajasthan for years after Freud painted the famous rat picture. In India, he was hardly seen by his old friends from artistic circles. He was happy to be known as the Rat Man – which was what Freud also called him in postcards he sent.

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“He liked being called the Rat Man, particularly in India, where they treat all animals with respect,” says Freud’s son Paul McAdam Freud. “They treated him like a maharajah there.”

As Raymond travelled the world, he painted everywhere he went, employing all sorts of different artistic styles. One picture of a café in Brighton – inspired by, but not a copy of, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks – was particularly admired by his artistic friends.

In his later years, Raymond returned to his home in northwest London, where he died this month.

Jade Joel, a friend of Raymond’s family, says, “He was such a kind, gentle character. He had a very big heart. He had always kept his very fond memories of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon at the front of his mind and loved sharing stories of the time they shared together. Being painted by Freud was just one of the elevating things in his career. There were so many portraits done of him. He also had quite a circle, including lords, ladies and royalty.

“I was fascinated by the amazing history of such a great man. I know that everyone who knows him holds him in such high regard and respect. I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to know him.”

“He had a very close relationship with Anthony Richards, who was his best friend and companion.”

Anthony Richards says, “He was one of Lucian’s favourite muses. I am absolutely devastated at his passing but he went the way he actually wished: at home, in his bed, with me by his side.”

Raymond also became friends with Freud’s son, Paul McAdam Freud. Paul says, “He was proud of his association with the rat and the infamous portrait. Raymond would talk about his experiences sitting for Lucian with the rat. There was a fondness for the rat – it was an addition to the aesthetic quality of the painting. That painting was so powerful. It redefined the male nude in many ways. At the time, I was quite disturbed by it – that was part of its power. It really moved the goalposts.”