Before The Fourth

Lucian Freud

Before the Fourth is a portrait of society figure, actress and friend of Freud's, Annabel Mullion, pregnant with her fourth child William Ajax Baring, who was born in June 2004. Freud had painted Mullion once before, with her dog Rattler in 1998, and did so a second time a year after the present etching for the related painting Expecting the Fourth. The artist was a constant admirer of Mullion's enduring beauty, and she was described by the scholar Catherine Lampert in Freud's Guardian obituary as having "limbs still like a thoroughbred", and quoted one of Freud's favourite authors, Baudelaire, to describe the longevity of her youth: "vainly have time and love sunk their teeth into her".

CC14 25 FREUD Before the Fourth unnumbered
4 images
Artist
Lucian Freud (1922-2011)
Title
Before the Fourth
Medium
Etching on Somerset white paper
Date
2004
Size
22 ½ x 26 in : 57.3 x 66.0 cm
Framed Size
26 x 29 in : 66.3 x 74.0 cm
Edition
From the edition of 46, signed and numbered by the artist
Printer
Marc Balakjian at Studio Prints, London
Literature
Figura, S., Lucian Freud 'The Painter's Etchings' , New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 2007 (illus. p.26, fig.12, another example)
Reference
CC14-52
Status
Available

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