{"id":1355,"title":"Study for Portrait VI","medium":"Oil on canvas","classification":"Paintings","dimension":"59 5/8 × 45 3/4 in. (151.4 × 116.2 cm) (canvas)\r\n68 1/4 × 54 1/8 × 4 1/4 in. (173.4 × 137.5 × 10.8 cm) (outer frame)","object_name":"Painting","continent":"Europe","country":"England","nationality":"British (born Ireland)","dated":"1953","room":"G377","list":"pride-month, Euro-highlights-1800-1960s","role":"Artist","inscription":"On verso (in red): #3","text":"The human figure was Francis Bacon's principal object of study throughout his career.  This picture belongs to a series of eight paintings, which began as a portrait of Bacon's friend and biographer David Sylvester but became, in the final project, studies of a seated pope. They are inspired by the Velazquez 'Portrait of of Pope Innocent X' (Palazzo Doria, Rome), Eisenstein's Nurse in 'The Battleship Potemkin', and Eadweard Muybridge's sequential photos of the human body in movement. Bacon made his figures more and more agititated until, in the final painting, the pope is convulsive. Here his ambiguous facial expression rests somewhere between the grimace of Portrait V and the horrific scream of Portrait VII.\r\n\r\nThis painting is one of the first Francis Bacon paintings acquired by an American museum.","creditline":"The Miscellaneous Works of Art Purchase Fund","accession_number":"58.35","artist":"Francis Bacon","life_date":"British (born Ireland), 1909–1992","image_copyright":"© The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved.","department":"European Art","rights_type":"In Copyright","image_width":5148,"image_height":6679,"recent":0,"see_also":[],"sort_number":"58    35","image":"valid","public_access":1,"curator_approved":0,"highlights":0,"Cache_Location":"001000\\300\\50\\1355","Primary_RenditionNumber":"mia_4001848.jpg","Rights_Image_Display":"Limited","list:pride-month":true,"list:euro-highlights-1800-1960s":true,"restricted":1,"related:audio-stops":[{"title":"Francis Bacon, Study for Portrait VI","_id":"1355","objectId":"1355","link":"http://audio-tours.s3.amazonaws.com/p853.mp3","number":"853","type":"audio"}],"related:artstories":[{"title":"Study for Portrait VI","_id":"1355","objectId":"1355","description":"<p>His vision is a dark one. Francis Bacon painted several portraits of popes (this is number six), and they all appear trapped, isolated and anguished—but beautifully painted. The portraits are based on Diego Velázquez’s celebrated portrait of Pope Innocent X, from 1650. And through his new way of depicting the human figure, Bacon showed what a portrait can be in the 20th century. In each of several studies he made for the painting, Bacon gave the pope a different face. Ultimately, he makes viewers feel as if they were behind the scenes, witnessing a private performance by a public figure.</p>","link":"http://artstories.artsmia.org/#/o/1355","type":"artstory"}],"mtime":"2026-03-13T09:00:09.514Z"}