Before photography, masks from moulds of living and recently dead fces were the most accurate way of preserving someone's appearance. In September 1823, author William Blake ("The Marriage of Heaven and Hell") decided to let sculper James Deville immerse his head in plaster, with only a straw to breath through as it solidified. Francis Bacon owned a copy of one of Blake's life masks and it was one of his most valued possessions. In 1955, Bacon made of series of paintings on Blake's life that Bacon hoped conveyed strong themes of deathliness and violence.

Bacon’s potrait tantalizes us with the promise of turning death into an unthreatening event, but leaves
us within the situation of death. Seen in this light, the noose-like circle does not so much refer to violent death as to the imprisonment in the situation of death that life
entails.

This is a passionate and mysterious tribute from one great London artist to another.