Katie Taylor’s first ever portrait to be auctioned in Wicklow

The Katie Taylor portrait styled on Holbein

Set to happen just weeks before the Bray boxer takes her final bow in front of 80,000 fans at Croke Park.

Titled ‘The Ambassadors’, the double portrait captures the dawn of women’s boxing in Ireland.

It depicts a young Katie Taylor alongside her Belfast opponent Alanna Audley, painted after their 2001 bout at Dublin’s National Stadium.

The first time female boxers fought under the auspices of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association (IABA), a moment now woven into Irish sporting history. Taylor won.

Artist Paul MacCormaic was driving to work when he heard the pair interviewed by the late broadcaster Marian Finucane on RTÉ Radio, as reported by the Irish Mirror.

Struck by their fighting spirit and what they had overcome to compete, he tracked Taylor down at her local Bray club and asked her to pose.

The photo-realistic work is styled on Hans Holbein’s 1533 masterpiece 'The Ambassadors'.

In place of Renaissance riches, MacCormaic filled it with turn-of-the-millennium teenage treasures, videos, CDs and sports jerseys.

And where Holbein hid his famous skull illusion, the Irish artist placed protective sports headgear in the foreground.

MacCormaic’s portrait of Catherine Corless hangs in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Ireland.

The timing is pointed. As Taylor prepares for her Croke Park swansong, the painting that caught her at the very beginning returns to Bray , bringing a remarkable career full circle, from an unknown teenager in a local club to an Irish icon bowing out before a packed stadium.