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”. Related work: ‘Expecting the Fourth’ (2005), oil on canvas, 10.2 x 15.2 cm