His nose looks like a noseguard from a medieval helmet but is also asymmetric and angled out at the top of the left side.

[2] He says the technique of carving directly in marble, without a clay or plaster model, gives it "an earnest of Vorticist energy, of vitalism".

[3] The sculpture was first exhibited in 1914 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, listed under the title Bust of Mr. Ezra Pound.

It then belonged to Pound and his estate until it was sold through Hirschl & Adler Galleries in New York in 1988 to Raymond and Nancy Nasher.

[1] In his short 1992 book Watermark, Joseph Brodsky described his having seen the sculpture at the home of Pound's widow, Olga Rudge, in the Calle Querini 252, on a visit accompanying Susan Sontag in November 1977.