Design by Michael Annals for Inca gold in the form of a swan, used as a stage property in Peter Shaffer's play, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, ANTA Theatre, New York, 1965.

Michael Annals (1938-1990) trained at Hornsey College of Art and began his career designing sets and costumes for the Old Vic. In 1963 the newly formed National Theatre Company moved into the Old Vic and Annals joined them, having his first major success with his designs for Peter Shaffer's historical epic, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964). He went on to have an international career, designing for the theatre and for ballet, opera and film, but is most closely associated with the National Theatre, where he created notable settings for a range of productions, including O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night starring Laurence Olivier, Hecht and MacArthur's The Front Page and Shaw's Heartbreak House. Annals frequently worked in the United States and was Associate Professor of Scenic Design at Yale in 1966-1967. In 1984 he gave up the stage and took up photography and illustration.

The Royal Hunt of the Sun dramatises the Spanish Conquest of Peru in the 16th century. It was first staged by the National Theatre Company at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1964 and transferred to the Old Vic in the autumn of that year. The same production team re-created the staging in New York in 1965.