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Lot Essay
Sickert, painter of music halls in London and Paris, townscapes of Dieppe and Venice, intimate figure groups suggestive of bedroom dramas in Venice and Camden Town and innovative print-maker, was also a master of portraiture. In the 1890s he hoped to make his living with portraits, a genre which for decades had been, and long remained, the usual route to riches for a painter. He failed utterly. 'I see my line' he declared in 1899, 'Not portraits. Picturesque work' (by which he meant views of Dieppe and Venice). It was not until the late 1920s, when he painted grand, life-size full-lengths from photographs, that he acquired a reputation as a portrait painter. However, despite their lack of commercial success, many of his earlier portraits can now be seen as among his finest works. These were seldom commissioned. He tended to paint friends whom he liked. His liking for women in particular gave his more numerous female portraits an added dimension.
Sickert's good looks, wit and charm made him almost irresistible to women. He enjoyed long liaisons, brief encounters and light-hearted flirtations. He was between the first and second of his three marriages when he met Mrs Swinton towards the end of 1904, having spent the past six years abroad, in Dieppe and Venice. This meeting perhaps contributed to his decision to return to London.
Mrs George (Elsie) Swinton (née Elizabeth Ebsworth) was born in St Petersburg - where her father had extensive business interests - in 1874. She married Captain George Sitwell Swinton of Kimmerghame in Scotland (1859-1937) in 1895. He was 15 years older than his wife, a cultivated man, cousin of the Sitwells, amateur artist and distinguished member (in 1912 Chairman) of the London County Council. Mrs Swinton not only possessed great beauty; she had a glorious singing voice which was especially moving when she sang Russian songs. Unpublished notes compiled by Mrs Swinton's daughter in 1971 record that 'when Sickert first heard Elsie sing at a party he said to his hostess, "I must know that superb Russian"'. The party was probably that given by Mrs Charles Hunter for the French sculptor Rodin to introduce him to the most beautiful women in London.
Sickert was not the first to paint Elsie Swinton. Sargent had painted her in 1897 (Art Institute of Chicago); Orpen had painted the Swinton family in 1901; and Conder made a pastel portrait of Elsie wearing a green Fortuny dress (both still in family collections). Sickert produced three formal portraits of Mrs Swinton: the present painting; a smaller version of wider format, signed and dated 1905 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) (fig. 1); and a fiery half-length (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) in which Mrs Swinton, wearing a scarlet low-cut evening dress, is set against a stormy sea. The photograph on which the Fitzwilliam painting is based shows the sitter seated in Sickert's studio at 8 Fitzroy Street wearing decorous day dress. The backgrounds of the present painting and the smaller Ashmolean version were also entirely imaginary. They suggest Mrs Swinton, dramatically silhouetted against a background of the Venetian lagoon, gliding past in a gondola. Mrs Swinton had never been to Venice. Something in her sensual beauty made Sickert place her in the city from which he had recently departed after a year-long, artistically productive visit from summer 1903 to late spring 1904.
The present painting was bought in January 1907 by Adolphe Tavernier for Sickert's dealers in Paris, Bernheim Jeune who promptly included it in their one-man Sickert show later that month as En Gondole. The handling is vivacious; broken marks of colour disturb the surface of the water, high-keyed hatched strokes model her face. The tilt of her head, her downward glance, the great sweep of hair which frames her face, all add dramatic authority to the portrait writ large upon the canvas. This is no society portrait, even though Mrs Swinton was very much a part of society. It is a rare example of Sickert setting aside the emotional detachment he so prized to express the character and passion of a woman he loved.
We are very grateful to Dr Wendy Baron for preparing the catalogue entries for lots 39, 40, 41 and 52.
Sickert's good looks, wit and charm made him almost irresistible to women. He enjoyed long liaisons, brief encounters and light-hearted flirtations. He was between the first and second of his three marriages when he met Mrs Swinton towards the end of 1904, having spent the past six years abroad, in Dieppe and Venice. This meeting perhaps contributed to his decision to return to London.
Mrs George (Elsie) Swinton (née Elizabeth Ebsworth) was born in St Petersburg - where her father had extensive business interests - in 1874. She married Captain George Sitwell Swinton of Kimmerghame in Scotland (1859-1937) in 1895. He was 15 years older than his wife, a cultivated man, cousin of the Sitwells, amateur artist and distinguished member (in 1912 Chairman) of the London County Council. Mrs Swinton not only possessed great beauty; she had a glorious singing voice which was especially moving when she sang Russian songs. Unpublished notes compiled by Mrs Swinton's daughter in 1971 record that 'when Sickert first heard Elsie sing at a party he said to his hostess, "I must know that superb Russian"'. The party was probably that given by Mrs Charles Hunter for the French sculptor Rodin to introduce him to the most beautiful women in London.
Sickert was not the first to paint Elsie Swinton. Sargent had painted her in 1897 (Art Institute of Chicago); Orpen had painted the Swinton family in 1901; and Conder made a pastel portrait of Elsie wearing a green Fortuny dress (both still in family collections). Sickert produced three formal portraits of Mrs Swinton: the present painting; a smaller version of wider format, signed and dated 1905 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) (fig. 1); and a fiery half-length (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) in which Mrs Swinton, wearing a scarlet low-cut evening dress, is set against a stormy sea. The photograph on which the Fitzwilliam painting is based shows the sitter seated in Sickert's studio at 8 Fitzroy Street wearing decorous day dress. The backgrounds of the present painting and the smaller Ashmolean version were also entirely imaginary. They suggest Mrs Swinton, dramatically silhouetted against a background of the Venetian lagoon, gliding past in a gondola. Mrs Swinton had never been to Venice. Something in her sensual beauty made Sickert place her in the city from which he had recently departed after a year-long, artistically productive visit from summer 1903 to late spring 1904.
The present painting was bought in January 1907 by Adolphe Tavernier for Sickert's dealers in Paris, Bernheim Jeune who promptly included it in their one-man Sickert show later that month as En Gondole. The handling is vivacious; broken marks of colour disturb the surface of the water, high-keyed hatched strokes model her face. The tilt of her head, her downward glance, the great sweep of hair which frames her face, all add dramatic authority to the portrait writ large upon the canvas. This is no society portrait, even though Mrs Swinton was very much a part of society. It is a rare example of Sickert setting aside the emotional detachment he so prized to express the character and passion of a woman he loved.
We are very grateful to Dr Wendy Baron for preparing the catalogue entries for lots 39, 40, 41 and 52.