La Châle Venétien; La Carolina

The model for this painting was Caroline dell'Acqua, a friend of La Guiseppina, Sickert's favourite Venetian model, who posed for the artist at his rooms at 940 Calle dei Frati (see lot 115). The present work is from a series of three paintings of La Carolina, of which Wendy Baron (op. cit., p.76) comments that: 'All the pictures show the model leaning against one arm of the now horizontally-placed couch ... In these pictures of La Carolina Sickert rejected the fragile, delicate mood of the La Guiseppina portraits in favour of a much more abrupt and expressive treatment. In each picture he painted the model wrapped up in her long black clothes as a simplified silhouette of an almost uniform deep dark tone with only her hands and face, caught unevenly in the light, telling in harsh contrast. The sinous contours of the silhouettes, particularly in 'La Châle Venétien', are compelling and coyly expressive'.

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