How Much Is Study for Portrait of Pope Innocent X Worth?

This 1953 ‘Screaming Pope’ is among the most reproduced and discussed images of the 20th century, a fulcrum of Bacon’s project to re-make portraiture through psychological intensity. It crystallizes his dialogue with Velázquez while asserting a wholly modern icon: the enthroned figure dissolved by fear, confinement, and motion. Scholarship consistently places this canvas at the center of Bacon’s legacy; it is the work many viewers and collectors picture when they think of Bacon. Its presence in countless books, exhibitions, and surveys ensures cross-generational recognition that translates into superior bidding depth and enduring value, distinct from more episodic market fashion. As a canonical image, it commands an icon premium.

Painted in 1953, this canvas sits in Bacon’s prime early-1950s period, when the visual grammar of cages, veils, and the scream reached maturity. Among Pope variants, the Des Moines work is a fully resolved, large-format single panel that synthesizes the essential elements—throne, curtains, vibration, and the existential cry. Works from this narrow window carry a notable premium versus later iterations. The ‘Pope’ subject itself is the signature theme by which Bacon is known globally, akin to Picasso’s Harlequin or Warhol’s Marilyn. In valuation terms, a prime-year, A+ example of this subject outranks nearly all single-panel alternatives, including most 1960s portraits, in cultural charge and collector priority.

True substitutes for this painting are effectively unavailable. The best early-1950s Popes are locked in institutions or long-held private collections. The Des Moines canvas carries exemplary provenance—from early UK gallery ownership to major U.S. collectors and then into a museum collection—plus extensive publication and exhibition histories. Museum ownership confers an additional scarcity premium because such works very rarely re-enter the market; if one did, it would be treated as a once-in-a-generation opportunity by top buyers. This scarcity underpin is one reason valuation extends well beyond typical single-panel comparables and supports a range that can challenge the artist’s top benchmarks even without the triptych’s scale.

Recent single-panel Bacons have achieved $52–53m (1964 Lucian Freud portrait; 1976 Figure in Movement), while the long-standing 2014 Portrait of George Dyer Talking reached about $70m. Within the same iconography, a 1956 Pope sold for $27.55m in 2007 (≈$42m today), indicating durable demand for the theme across cycles. The 2017 ‘Red Pope’ was pitched at £60–80m despite going unsold, showing where the trade positions top papal imagery. Against these benchmarks, the 1953 Des Moines Pope merits a substantial icon-and-scarcity uplift, justifying a nine-figure estimate that sits between the strongest single-panel results and Bacon’s $142.4m triptych record, with potential to surpass the latter in a perfect competitive scenario.