Walter Richard Sickert

C. Maresco Pearce
His daughter, Mrs J. Mirkin
Her Sale, Sotheby's London, 16th November 1977, lot 25 
Browse & Darby, London
Sir Tristan Antico, Australia
His Sale, Sotheby's London, 22nd June 1994, lot 57, where acquired by the present owners

London, Browse & Darby, Sickert: Paintings and Drawings, 13th April - 13th May 1978, cat. no.4;
Sydney, David Jones' Art Gallery, Sickert, 14th - 30th August 1980, cat. no.27;
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, The Sixty-First Autumn Exhibition. Collective Exhibit of the Work of Richard Sickert, 1935-36, cat. no.89 (as Interior).

Wendy Baron, Sickert, Phaidon, London, 1973, p.368;
Wendy Baron, Sickert, Paintings & Drawings, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006, cat. no.456, p.431, illustrated p.432.

Original canvas. There are some faint signs of craquelure around the chaise longue and some very minor areas of paint separation both in the shadows of the tobacco jar and the chaise longue. There appear to be two old repaired tears approximately 2cm. long near the lower right corner; otherwise the work appears in good overall condition. There is a sensitively repaired tear near the centre of the upper edge. UV light reveals an opaque varnish. There is an area of retouching centre-left of the upper edge, which appears to relate to a tear visible from the reverse, and also some retouching to the repaired tears lower right. Held in a gilt composite frame. Please telephone the department on 2027 293 6424 f you have any questions about the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

We are in a room, a slightly shabby room. It feels claustrophobic, the furniture seemingly a little too large and archaically ornate for such a space. The light is suffused, falling across the many and varied textures; the polished mahogany of the table, buttoned velvet on the chaise, the printed wallpaper. We then notice a girl is dozing on the chaise-longue, her hands tucked beneath her head. She is young and perhaps pretty, her cheeks a little flushed as she sleeps. On the table, like some sort of grotesque trophy, sits a pottery tobacco jar in the likeness of the Emperor Napoleon III. The whole room seems quiet and still.

Such interiors are a substantial feature of Sickert's work in London in the period prior to and during World War I. These are the interiors of rented accommodation in areas fallen in status, the places Sickert himself and his fellow artists knew well. Resting: The Napoleon III Tobacco Jar was painted in a room in Warren Street which Sickert had rented as an additional studio during the war and it fits neatly into the body of paintings of interiors that he produced at this time. Most famously in Ennui of 1914 (Tate, London), but also in several other paintings, such as Suspense (Ulster Museum, Belfast) of 1916-17 or Sunday Afternoon (Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton) of 1912-13, we find ourselves in rooms that, like that in Resting: The Napoleon III Tobacco Jar, have a static quality of idleness. This is not though the idleness of the rich, it's the boring Sunday afternoon-ish enforced idleness of killing time, with just a hint of tension thrown in. Even though these paintings seem to beg to be seen as narratives, as episodes in the life of the figures, as indeed Virginia Woolf found in her interpretation of Yvonne (Private Collection) of this same period, they are perhaps more apt to be seen, as Wendy Baron notes, as interiors with figures rather than figures in an interior. Thus if the still-life quality that seems to pervade the whole rather than just the objects is seen as a prime element in their atmosphere, then it is perhaps worth thinking about the object that is so prominently displayed on the table, almost like the head of John the Baptist, the tobacco jar. Napoleon III had spent long periods of his life in England and indeed his reign included significant periods of co-operation and treaty with Britain. To include his likeness in a painting produced in the depths of WWI, when France and Britain stood by side along the Western Front, introduces into the work obvious references to the war. Whilst the paintings produced in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of the war have a more obvious martial element, most notable in The Soldiers of King Albert the Ready (Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield) and The Integrity of Belgium (Government Art Collection), references to the war become more veiled as the conflict continued and public opinion shifted to a grim resignation. The entertainers performing in front of a meagre audience in Brighton Pierrots (Tate, London), when even the guns in France could sometimes be heard on the South Coast, shows how the war had permeated the everyday, so perhaps the presence in Resting: The Napoleon III Tobacco Jar of an icon of Anglo-French relations would have been an entirely relevant feature to Sickert's contemporary audience.