Freud created his first etchings in 1946, using a hotel-room sink as an acid bath. However after several more experiments with the medium he felt unsatisfied and abandoned it until the 1980s. In 1982 he made several small prints of portrait heads for inclusion in a book. This work is one of a number of prints created in 1985, whose large size shows Freud’s interest in the possibilities of the medium, and his confidence as a printmaker. In this print, Freud has captured the weight of the sitter’s body, just as he does in his paintings. It relates to a painting of the same name, but the artist has chosen to remove the studio setting in the print.