Michel Leiris (1901-1990) was a writer and an important intellectual friend of Francis Bacon in Paris. In 1976, he was portrayed in a painting by Bacon, which formed the basis of this etching. A grid of thin, 'combed', coloured lines in blue, green, and pink floats before his face. Its structure appears similar to that of a fingerprint. The colours form a separate layer that has, as it were, been pushed in front of the portrait, which adds an extra dynamic mystery to the whole. Here the etching differs from the painting that served as the model. The portrait expresses devotion.

Leiris was a member of the Surrealist movement in Paris. Although Bacon would rather not have been labelled a Surrealist, he clearly did absorb the influence of the movement as can be seen in the incongruous or subconscious imagery that arises in his pictures or, as in this particular portrait, an interest in ethnological masks. The fact that Leiris was an anthropologist could also have played a a role in Bacon's choice of form.

After meeting in 1965, the French writer and ethnographer became one of Bacon’s closest friends and admirers; his opinion was among the few that the painter actually accepted. Regardless of the disproportion and enlargement of his facial features, Leiris is still recognisable. In this case, the distortion of the physical features is not driven by aesthetics, but is used to reach deeper into the soul of the sitter and highlight the subject’s personality. In so far as it is only the left eye is left undisturbed and majorly enlarged could suggest that the central theme of the painting is vision.

In 1983, Leiris published a monograph on Francis Bacon, 'Face et profil', and translated into French the famous interviews by the English art critic, David Sylvester.