.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Sickert's Venetian pictures of the period 1903-04 feature models painted in his studio at 940 Calle dei Frati, often set against the backdrop of a floral couch or a washstand draped with fabric and ribbons. La Giuseppina, recognisable in the present work by her heavy dark hair tied into a top knot, was his favourite sitter. She brought her friend La Carolina (nicknamed 'dell'Acqua' for her alleged aversion to water) and her mother, the old lady called 'mamma mia poveretta', to Sickert's studio, and all three women feature in a rich series of portraits from this period. Sickert's group of pictures of La Giuseppina's mother with her gaunt face and turbaned head were painted as contrasts to the voluptuous nudes posed by the two girls.
In the present work La Giuseppina is seated against an undefined backdrop, although the edge of a couch is suggested behind her, wearing the familiar pink and white blouse seen in The Siesta (1903-04, private collection). Her face is carefully modelled, as in the portraits of her mother, giving her a rather careworn and pensive expression. Her work as a prostitute, which Sickert acknowledges in the titles of her portraits, allowed her the time to sit for Sickert everyday between 9 am and 11 am and again at 1 pm until 4 pm. The convenience of a group of models who would visit his studio on a daily basis saved time and effort seeking subjects for landscape paintings, and the cold winter of 1903-04, as he told Jacques-Emile Blanche, encouraged him to stay indoors and paint from the model (see W. Baron, Sickert Paintings, catalogue for the exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, 1993, pp. 132, 136-38, 142).
Sickert's relationship with the painter, Spencer Frederick Gore, was one of the closest personal and professional relationships of his life. They worked together in Sickert's studio at Mornington Crescent and at his house in Neuville and Sickert commented that 'I may as well say that it is my practice that was transformed from 1905 by the example of the development of Gore's talent' (see R. Emmons, The Life and Opinions of Walter Richard Sickert, London, 1941, p. 124). Sickert was the best man at Gore's wedding to Mollie Kerr in January 1912, and he gave the present work as a wedding present to the bride. When Gore died in March 1914 from pneumonia, Sickert wrote his appreciation in the New Age (9 April 1914), 'A Perfect Modern', to the man who was 'probably the man I love and admire most of any I have known' (Sickert to Ethel Sands, see W. Baron, Miss Ethel Sands and Her Circle, London, 1977, p. 125).
In the present work La Giuseppina is seated against an undefined backdrop, although the edge of a couch is suggested behind her, wearing the familiar pink and white blouse seen in The Siesta (1903-04, private collection). Her face is carefully modelled, as in the portraits of her mother, giving her a rather careworn and pensive expression. Her work as a prostitute, which Sickert acknowledges in the titles of her portraits, allowed her the time to sit for Sickert everyday between 9 am and 11 am and again at 1 pm until 4 pm. The convenience of a group of models who would visit his studio on a daily basis saved time and effort seeking subjects for landscape paintings, and the cold winter of 1903-04, as he told Jacques-Emile Blanche, encouraged him to stay indoors and paint from the model (see W. Baron, Sickert Paintings, catalogue for the exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, 1993, pp. 132, 136-38, 142).
Sickert's relationship with the painter, Spencer Frederick Gore, was one of the closest personal and professional relationships of his life. They worked together in Sickert's studio at Mornington Crescent and at his house in Neuville and Sickert commented that 'I may as well say that it is my practice that was transformed from 1905 by the example of the development of Gore's talent' (see R. Emmons, The Life and Opinions of Walter Richard Sickert, London, 1941, p. 124). Sickert was the best man at Gore's wedding to Mollie Kerr in January 1912, and he gave the present work as a wedding present to the bride. When Gore died in March 1914 from pneumonia, Sickert wrote his appreciation in the New Age (9 April 1914), 'A Perfect Modern', to the man who was 'probably the man I love and admire most of any I have known' (Sickert to Ethel Sands, see W. Baron, Miss Ethel Sands and Her Circle, London, 1977, p. 125).