This work shows a distorted version of the Portrait of Innocent Xpainted by Spanish artist  Diego Velazquez in 1650. The work is one of the first in a series of around 50 variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. The paintings are widely regarded as highly successful modern re-interpretations of a classic of the western canon of visual art.

Of the old masters, Bacon favored Titian, Rembrandt, Velázquez and Francisco Goya's late works.He kept an extensive inventory of images for source material, but preferred not to confront the major works in person; he viewed Portrait of Innocent Xonly once. Having deliberately avoided it for years, he only saw it in person much later in his life.

The canvas is one of Bacon's masterpieces, completed when he was at the height of his creative powers.It has been the subject of detailed analysis by several major scholars. David Sylvester described it as, along with Head VI, "the finest pope Bacon produced."

The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. As a diverging act to the popular pop rock of the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, heavier-driven sound that came to define hard rock. The band's first stable line-up consisted of bandleader Brian Jones (guitar, harmonica, keyboards), Mick Jagger (lead vocals, harmonica), Keith Richards (guitar, vocals), Bill Wyman (bass guitar), Charlie Watts (drums), and Ian Stewart (piano), the last of whom was removed from the official line-up in 1963, but continued to work with the band as a contracted musician until his death in 1985. The band's primary songwriters, the partnership of Jagger and Richards, assumed leadership after Andrew Loog Oldham became the group's manager. Jones left the band less than a month before his death in 1969, having already been replaced by Mick Taylor, who in turn left in 1974 and was replaced in 1975 by Ronnie Wood, who has since remained. Since Wyman's departure in 1993, Darryl Jones has served as bassist. The Stones have not had an official keyboardist since Stewart's departure in 1963, but have employed several musicians in that role, including Jack Nitzsche.