The fact that this painting is damaged should not diminish its significance within the artists oeuvre. It is highly unusual for, a work of art of this importance to come to auction with the central feature, in this case the head of the saint, summarily removed. More often it is the fragment itself which has been removed from a larger, damaged work which appears on the market. In the absence of the missing part of this painting, it could be argued that the very loss it has suffered imbues the painting with a sense of dramatic intensity, evoking a visceral response almost akin to the reaction experienced with certain contemporary works of art. Ricardo Lattuada draws parallels between the impact of the present painting in its damaged state, with the conceptual work of emilio Isgrò (b.1937) who is known for his use of creative erasure, a technique of removing words from books to turn absence into meaning.