Signed in pen and ink (lower left). Inscribed M.N. in brown ink (lower right) and Ennui below in black ink.
Glued on a support sheet.
Literature: G. White, 'Sickert Drawings', Image, no. 7, Spring 1952, p. 40, illustrated;
W. Baron, Sickert, London, 1973, under no. 331.
Baron 2006, pp. 392-3, no. 389.3, illustrated.
Provenance: Miss Lowe;
with Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, 1960;
Dame Rebecca West, 1962, by whom gifted to Sir Noël Coward;
Christie’s Sale, Modern British and Irish Art, 19 March 2015, London, South Kensington, lot 19.
Exhibitions: London, Roland, Browse and Delbanco, Sickert 1860-1942, March - April 1960, no. 39;
Brighton, Royal Pavilion, Sussex Festival Exhibition, Sickert, June 1962, no. 25.
A woman is sitting on a bed with bare feet, her shirt open on her bare breast, her arms akimbo. Her frustration is aimed at a man standing on the other side of the bed with his arms crossed. The tension between the two is palpable. The present work is part of a group of drawings featuring two figures who interact around a bed (Baron 2006, 389.1-9).
According to Wendy Baron, all the drawings are related to the oil on canvas Shuttered Sunlight, painted by Sickert in about 1912 and now in a private collection (Baron 2006, 389). The Tiff, as well as some of the other drawings’ titles – Home Truth; Amantium Irae; An Argument – refers to the “petty conflicts and intimacies of married life” (Baron 2006, p. 393). The models are likely to be Mary Hayes and Hubby.
Sold