Walter Richard Sickert A.R.A. (British, 1860-1942)


Femme de Lettres signed and inscribed 'Wellington House Hampd Rd/Sickert' (lower right)charcoal38.6 x 40.6 cm. (15 1/4 x 16 in.)Executed circa 1912-13
|ProvenanceSir Hugh WalpoleJ.S. WrightSale; Christie's, London, 21 May 1954, lot 20With Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, 1958M.F. WilliamsDennis MatthewsMiss Bertha J. MacLennanPrivate Collection, U.K.ExhibitedLondon, Arts Council of Great Britain, Sickert, 1960, cat.no.129 (where lent by Miss Bertha J. MacLennan)LiteratureAnthony Bertram, Sickert: World's Masters - New Series, Studio Publications, London, 1955, pl.18Wendy Baron, Sickert, Paintings & Drawings, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006, cat.no.401 (ill.b&w)'Ethel Sands told me that Gilman modelled for the male figure; she felt it would be improper to tell me who modelled for the girl sitting on his lap. Bromberg, in discussing the meaning of the title, suggested that the "letters" in question may have been a pun for "French letters". I believe the allusion was more direct, if a trifle ironic, and that the model was Enid Bagnold, in 1912 not only a pupil of Sickert at Rowlandson House but a journalist writing for Hearth and Home, which was edited by the notorious philanderer Frank Harris (to whom she lost her heart and her virginity). The girl in Femme de Lettres resembles Miss Bagnold.' (Wendy Baron, Sickert, Paintings & Drawings, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006).