Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1898, The Skirt Dance was a version of a very similar painting, The Ionian Dance, which had appeared at the RA three years earlier. Both show a girl in diaphanous drapery dancing in a marble hall to music played by a piper, while groups of female figures look on. The present study is for the head of the dancer. Other studies for the paintings were sold in these Rooms on 22 May 1990, lots 5-9, and 29 October 1991, lot 5