

In the catalogue of the 1996 Dublin exhibition (ed. Brenda McParland, Sarah Glennie and Róisín Kennedy) it is noted that the present work is unusual in that it presents the head simultaneously full-face and in profile. Although these works were not painted with particular models in mind, unlike the later portraits, possible sources for this may be the Celto-Lingurian two-faced Hermes at Rocquepertuse, in southern France, which he visited in 1965 or the three-faced Corlech head, from Co. Cavan (coll. National Museum of Ireland, Dublin).