Focus on this artwork and explore the Commission and provenance.
The 1949 Hanover gallery exhibition included the six Head paintings, and four other important early works by Bacon: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, Figure in a landscape, Study from the Human Body (also known as  Study for Figure) and Study for Portrait (also known as  Man in a Blue Box).They are usually interpreted as intermediate steps from the preliminary images in Head I and Head II towards the final image of Head VI, the first of Bacon's paintings to reference Velázquez and his Portrait of Innocent X of 1650. Head III was the first of the six paintings to be sold at the Hanover Gallery exhibition.  It was acquired by US art collector Wright Saltus Ludington (brother of Charles Townsend Ludington) in October 1949, shortly before the exhibition opened in November 1949.  It was later sold to Sir Edward and Lady Hulton, and passed through the hands of several private collectors.  It was included in Bacon retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1985, and sold again at Sotheby's in London in 2013.
Wright Saltus Ludington Edward Tate Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion Tate Gallery Figure in a landscape Charles Townsend Ludington Head V Sotheby's Hanover Gallery Head VI Velázquez Study for Portrait Head I Head II Portrait of Innocent X