Will Lucian Freud go to Clement’s funeral?

Sir Clement Freud, who died on Thursday aged 84, certainly lived his life to the very last minute. According to the London Evening Standard, Freud, a life-long gourmet, spent the last few hours of dining in the sumptuous surrounds of The Wolseley, the Piccadilly restaurant that boasts 13 different types of champagne.

Sir Clement was lunching with a friend and appeared to be in fine fettle. "I saw him get up and wander over to another table," reports a fellow diner. "He looked very happy. In fact he was laughing when he went over to speak to the other person."

Others in the restaurant who witnessed his last repast included literary agents Caroline Michel and Jonathan Lloyd, and John Woodward, chief executive of the Film Council. One who didn't, however, was his brother, the painter Lucian Freud , who is also a regular patron of the Wolseley and once famously threw a bread roll at a table of diners who he felt were making too much noise.

Now that Sir Clement has passed away the question arises as to whether Lucian will bury the hatchet and attend his funeral, to be held next week. The brothers have not been on speaking terms for decades and tellingly Lucian did not join in the glowing tributes to his brother yesterday.

The pair, grandchildren of Sigmund Freud, the psychoanalyst, were said to have originally fallen out over a trivial affair: which of them was the rightful winner of a boyhood race.

One version of the story has Clement leading the race through a public park, only for Lucian to call out: "Stop, thief!" A passer-by apprehended Clement, and Lucian sprinted to the finish line. The location has been variously placed as Vienna, Pimlico and Hyde Park.

A rapprochement seems unlikely, however. Last year, when asked if they would ever be friends, Lucian said: "Why on Earth would I want to speak to him or see him again? I was offered a knighthood but turned it down. My younger brother has one of those. That's all that needs to be said on the matter." ·