IT IS not every day that you see your daughter nude in The Times, but that is the surprise that greeted Sir David Williams-Wynn yesterday morning.

The Welsh landowner and baronet proudly confirmed that it was his daughter, Alexandra, who was the mystery nude in Lucian Freud’s new self-portrait, pictured in this newspaper yesterday.

“I saw her last week. She doesn’t in any way deny that she is in his paintings,” he said at his estate in North Wales.

Freud has refused to name the subject, a brown-haired girl shown holding his thigh and ankle admiringly.

The National Portrait Gallery, which unveiled the 50in picture on Tuesday, claimed not to know who she was.

But Ms Williams-Wynn bears the closest resemblance of three women recently linked to the artist. Her hair and jawline are identical.

Her father, whose ancestor Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn was one of Wales’s most generous patrons of the arts, said that he did not know whether his daughter was romantically involved with the artist.

“As far as I know she is a model-cum-gopher. I don’t know what the nature of their relationship is. As far as I am concerned, she is (over) 30 and it is none of my business.”

She has declined to comment. “I don’t really want a fuss being made of the fact a 32-year-old might be with an 82-year-old,” she said last year. “I want to be a will-o’-the-wisp about such things.”

He added that he was proud that she should be given the opportunity to learn from the most admired figurative artist alive in Britain. “I’m delighted for her to be studying with him. It is a tremendous opportunity. This is obviously more beneficial to her than the Royal Academy.”

Sir David said he believed that his daughter would be the subject of more works.

Ms Wynn-Williams has described her relationship with the artist as “very good friends”. The picture, The Painter Surprised by a Naked Admirer, will be on display at the gallery until May 8.

Ms Williams-Wynn also appears, unnamed, in this month’s Tatler magazine accompanying an article on Freud’s studio. She is shown, her face half-hidden, as Freud strides past her.

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