In 1920 Sickert executed many studies of the gaming tables of the Casino facing the seafront at the end of the Rue Aguado. During the summer the Casino was patronised by a fashionable clientele, amongst whom his friend Lady Blanche Hosier, the mother of Lady Winston Churchill, and it was she who complained that the players might be recognised from his drawings. Sickert then drew more discreetly on small cards. The present work is unusual in that it shows the croupier in his special chair frame. The lower inscription is undoubtedly an address noted by Sickert on the nearest piece of paper to hand, and bears no relation to the drawing.

We are very grateful to Dr. Wendy Baron for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.