The Camden Town Group in Context

Walter Howarth, from whom purchased by Tate Gallery 1941.

This is a preparatory study for the painting L’Armoire à Glace (Tate N05313) in graphite, ink, gouache and watercolour on laid paper. It is a more elaborate study in comparison with the drawing of the same title in the Tate collection (Tate N06087). The artist has chosen a thin, fawn-coloured laid paper that is of good quality. The bottom edge is torn and the remainder are cut straight, suggesting that it was torn from a sketchbook. There are two horizontal creases that run parallel across the entire width of the sheet where it was once folded. The image is drawn within a rectangle outlined in graphite and there are narrow blank margins along the four edges of the sheet. There are several annotations in the margins that appear to relate to the appearance of particular elements of the drawing; ‘red edge’ indicating the near vertical edge of the wardrobe and ‘[illegible] of cold shine’ indicating the panels of the open door.

The work was begun in graphite, traces of which can still be seen, and then overlaid with pen and ink and embellished with watercolour washes and highlights in white gouache. The ink, which is perhaps iron gall ink, has faded to a warm brown colour and where it has been heavily applied has ‘burnt’ through to the verso of the paper. In some areas it has bled as a result of the subsequent application of watercolour. The paper, ink and watercolour have discoloured over time and the recto of the sheet now has a pinkish caste. There are several pinholes at the top corners and approximately ten found across the image. These may have been made by the artist pinning the work to a board or may relate to a transfer technique used to copy parts or the entire image to another support.

In common with Ennui c.1914 (Tate N03846) and other earlier paintings of domestic interiors, the visual appearance of the oil painting L’Armoire à glace 1924 (Tate N05313, fig.1) developed across a series of related images. Walter Sickert first produced the subject as a 1922 etching of the same title,1 and a sequence of studies was also produced to facilitate the print.2 It is likely that Sickert referred to and in some cases reworked these drawings and watercolours for the oil version, completed in London. There are two preparatory sketches in Tate’s collection (Tate N05312 and N06087, fig.2).

Study for ‘L’Armoire à glace’ is a full compositional colour study which has been first sketched lightly in pencil and then overlaid with pen and ink and washes of watercolour. There are also touches of white gouache in places, for example around the edge of the mirror and the reflected light on the panels of the door. In appearance it is closer to the etched version than the painting, because it includes the view of the edge of the bedroom door and doorknob on the far right of the picture. In addition, some of the drawn pen and ink lines are echoed within areas of line and cross-hatching in the etching. Furthermore, the receding perspective of the mirrored door is more oblique in the painting. Nevertheless, the fact that Sickert troubled to complete the study in watercolour suggests that he was always intending to paint a version in oil.

The work bears the inscription ‘Picture Stevenson [sic] collection Southport’, which refers to the first owner of the oil painting, William Henry Stephenson (see Tate N05313). Sickert presumably annotated the drawing at a later date, after Stephenson had purchased the oil version of the painting (which is signed and dated 1924). In size and appearance the work is very close to another study, Study for ‘L’Armoire à glace’ 1922 (pen and ink and wash on paper, private collection), which Sickert also gave to Stephenson. The author of the catalogue raisonné of Sickert’s prints, Ruth Bromberg, believes that this study formed the basis for an intermediate tracing which was then used to transfer the image to a copper plate etching. She suggests the pink watercolour wash was only added to the drawing after the etching was complete, possibly at the time when Sickert sent the work to Stephenson.3 By contrast, another compositional colour study, Mon Rêve: Study for ‘L’Armoire à glace’ 1922 (ink, watercolour and pencil, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inscribed ‘Moi depuis que j’ai mon armoire à glace je suis contente’ [Since I have had my mirrored wardrobe I am content]), exhibits similar use of watercolour wash but without the same level of detail added in pen and ink. Tate’s study is therefore the most complete and highly worked preparatory study for the painting.