On the mantelpiece stood a card with the telephone numbers of his closest friends, Artemis Cooper (whose biography of Fermor is being published this month) and Deborah Mitford, later the Duchess of Devonshire.

WSJ: At Home in the World

Through his door came an extraordinary mixture of people: drunks and gamblers from his underworld life, Kate Moss and Jerry Hall, Francis Bacon and David Hockney (both friends), the Duchess of Devonshire and Lord Goodman, performance artists and men with razor scars on their faces.

ECONOMIST: Lucian Freud, painter, died on July 20th, aged 88