In addition to intimate, lyrical and melancholic works, Franc Berneker also created monumental and gravestone sculptures and portraits. Berneker was an accomplished portraitist and devoted himself to portraiture in his student years. His oeuvre is marked by numerous portraits of clients, patrons, children and important figures. In the first decade of the 20th century, he created a series of portraits in Vienna. His marble portraits are a fine expression of his artistic strengths and skills. By adopting Secession-style elements, he imparted a unique tenderness, dreaminess and grace to his realist portraits. In many cases, the stone block supporting the bust was left rough and untreated.

One such work is Female Head (1909), a marble portrait of an unknown woman that is rendered realistically, softly and in a smooth finish, while the lower part of the sculpture consists of a roughly cut and untreated stone block.