‘Encarnation in the Square’ depicts Lucian Freud’s daughter (with his first wife Kitty Epstein), Annie. Annie was rehearsing a play of the same name, for which they intended the drawing as an advertisement poster but after several rehearsals the play was never performed. William Feaver, author of 'The Lives of Lucian Freud', remarked that Freud purportedly provided effusive advice on Annie’s rehearsals as well as producing several flyers for her various performances, of which very few survive. The drawing was gifted to Annie on her graduation and later returned to Lucian who sold it to Raymond Jones, ‘The Man with the Rat’, a sitter and friend of Lucian, renowned for his nude portrait with a rat by the artist. Annie’s foray into acting – something which her father had promoted – was short lived due to stage fright. She is now an acclaimed poet but for years lived in the shadow of her father and their extraordinary wider family. Lucian famously painted a nude portrait Annie aged 14 which, although tender and reserved by Freud’s own standards, was greeted with a considerable degree of shock at the time.