Louis le Brocquy, H.R.H.A. (b. 1916)

An early instance of a small series of heads of Descartes. The artist commented on these works, 'I came across the skull of René Descartes in a glass case in the Musée de l'Homme, Paris - an ivory dome, smooth as a woman's breast. Merely a bit of bone perhaps but, by implication, a tabernacle to this great instance of human consciousness' (Louis le Brocquy, Paintings 1939-1996, Irish Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Catalogue, Dublin, 1996, p. 104).