Mirage II has an original catalogue raisonné number of 162 and the new catalogue raisonné number is FCR 187 On 24 May 1963, Elizabeth Frink wrote to the Tate to say that the precursor to the Mirage series, Harbinger Bird IV was the final one of that series all done in that year [i.e. 1960]. The Harbinger Birds are a development from the early Birds which one can say fall into three lots - the first of the first lot being the one that you already have in the Tate [N06140]. Then ... the second lot which developed from the first, becoming, I think, more abstract and more simple in form with less emphasis on texture - to finally the Harbinger series which are constructed of much more slab-like, solid forms. And this is the way in which I am working at present. Harbinger Bird IV, over the years, metamorphosed into the further abstracted Mirage series.
Private collection, purchased from the artist; donated to: A charitable trust
Annette Ratuszniak, with contributions by Leo A. Daly, Arie Hartog,Michael Morpurgo and Julian Spalding, Elisabeth Frink, Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture 1947-93, Lund Humphries, London 2013, Catalogue number FCR 187 (original Catalogue Raisonné number 162)