This is the third of four ‘portraits’ Miró made of a Catalan peasant, reduced to the most basic form of eyes, wavy beard and distinctive red cap. The painting can also be read as a self-portrait, with the artist asserting his Catalonian identity. It was painted at a time when Miró was moving away from a Cubist treatment of space. In this painting, forms float freely in the picture space, liberating the figure. Many of the artist’s works of this period were influenced by hallucinations and dream imagery but most were preceded by preparatory sketches. The painting was formerly in the collection of the Surrealist patron Roland Penrose and is now jointly owned with Tate, London.