This is a signed and numbered work from a small edition created by the artist in 1972, after his original sculpture of 1936. In 1961 Marcel Jean explained the full significance of this work’s disturbing zippered eyes: ‘The zip fastener (in French fermeture éclair – “lightning fastener”) is introduced as a plastic translation of another current expression des yeux qui lancent des éclairs – “eyes flashing like lightning”.’ In order to create the sculpture, Jean covered a plaster copy of Jean-Antoine Houdon’s eighteenth-century bust of Madame du Barry, the mistress of Louis XV, with fabric and black paint.