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Lot 44

Walter Richard Sickert A.R.A.
(British, 1860-1942)
Femme de Lettres 38.6 x 40.6 cm. (15 1/4 x 16 in.)

Modern British and Irish Art

13 June 2018, 15:00 BST

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £12,500 inc. premium

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

Femme de Lettres
signed and inscribed 'Wellington House Hampd Rd/Sickert' (lower right)
charcoal
38.6 x 40.6 cm. (15 1/4 x 16 in.)
Executed circa 1912-13

Footnotes

Provenance
Sir Hugh Walpole
J.S. Wright
Sale; Christie's, London, 21 May 1954, lot 20
With Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, 1958
M.F. Williams
Dennis Matthews
Miss Bertha J. MacLennan
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
London, Arts Council of Great Britain, Sickert, 1960, cat.no.129 (where lent by Miss Bertha J. MacLennan)

Literature
Anthony Bertram, Sickert: World's Masters - New Series, Studio Publications, London, 1955, pl.18
Wendy 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).

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