PATRICK COLLINS, H.R.H.A. | MENHIRS ON THE PLAIN

Tom Caldwell Galleries, Dublin;

Vincent & Noeleen Ferguson Collection; 

Their sale, Sotheby's, London, 24 October 2006, lot 16, where purchased by the present owner

Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, Vincent and Noeleen Ferguson Collection, 28 January - 14 March 1993

The present work belongs to a series inspired by Patrick Collins's travels to Brittany in the late 1950s, where he encountered menhirs - large, single standing stones of pre-historic European origin. The word menhir was adopted from the French by nineteenth century archaeologists on the basis of the words in the Breton language meaning 'long stone'.