Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976)

Lawrence Ives's daughter, Johanna Charlotte, took Lowry a gift of a portrait by an old lady they had befriended in Chablis. Liking the picture, Lowry insisted on an exchange and showed her this drawing of A Tramp, St. Peter's Square and another of a bus queue. After some thought Johanna chose the present work in which the tramp, according to Lowry, is looking for cigarette ends.

Some years later a Manchester dealer offered Lawrence Ives a good forgery of this work. He was unimpressed when the owner of the original pointed out that it was, at the moment of speaking, in the 1987 centenary exhibition at Salford.