On 20 January 1898 Arthur Wing Pinero’s ‘comedietta’ Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Set in the 1860s the play tells the story of a young actress, Rose Trelawny, who, after leaving the Barridge Wells Theatre Company, finds married life a stifling experience. She abandons her new husband to return to the theatre and only when he too becomes an actor and she forsakes light comedy for more naturalistic roles are they reunited on stage. The scene depicted by Sickert occurs early in the play when Irene Vanbrugh in the title role, wearing a white dress, stands on a chair to announce her departure to the rest of the company. As marriage beckons, she proudly declares that being known as ‘Trelawny of the Wells’ will be her greatest accolade. Despite the energy of the performers, the play received lukewarm reviews from critics, many of whom predicted a limited run. The artist, accompanied by William Rothenstein, went to see it during its opening weeks and both were nevertheless charmed by it. Rothenstein later recalled that it ‘seemed written for our delight’: What fun it all was; and how enchanting the costumes! And such a chance it provided that Sickert asked Miss Hilda Spong – a magnificent creature who acted a part – to sit for him … Sickert had Miss Spong photographed, and from a small print and with few sittings he achieved a life-size portrait. Thus, before the opening of the New English Art Club at which it was shown, Sickert hastily completed his large portrait of Hilda Spong, posing in costume as Imogen Parrot, a successful member of the Wells company who has moved up in the profession. Rothenstein, at the same time, chose Vanburgh, making her debut in a leading role, as the subject of his full-length portrait. Sickert obtained a photograph of the ‘Toast’ scene as an aide-memoire for his recreation of the most memorable scene in the play. This is likely to have formed the basis for the present work. Sickert’s use of photographs in the early months of 1898 comes six years after his attack on his contemporaries’ over-reliance on the medium. Back in 1892 he had coined the neologism ‘photorealism’ to refer to the numerous followers of Bastien-Lepage who were resorting to slavish transcription of camera lens effects. The ‘tacit assumption’ on which this theory was built, was that, … if photography, instead of yielding little proofs on paper in black and white, could yield large proofs on canvas in oils, the occupation of the painter would be gone. It comes as a surprise then that in the ‘Trelawny’ sequence, photographs should assume such an important role. Sickert does transcribe the Toast scene – Spong is the seated character at the lower right and he indicates a modern spotlight on the central group of players. The picture, which Browse describes as ‘fascinating and somewhat curious’, uncannily anticipates his closer engagement with the medium in later years. By the 1930s, photographs and prints had become his principal visual source, and their transcription, aided by squaring-up, was a basic procedure. In terms of métier, the present canvas is thus of immense significance. The picture’s subsequent history is fascinating. Shortly after completing The Toast, Sickert set off for Dieppe. Throughout the next few years the French port, apart from two extended trips to Venice, became his base. He was not to return permanently to London for a further seven years. There he renewed his friendship with the artist Jacques-Emile Blanche who, recognising his straightened circumstances, introduced him to potential collectors – one of whom was the young author, André Gide. The sales pitch included a graphic description of the squalid (bohemian) circumstances in which Sickert was now living and his colourful matelot attire. The writer was hooked. Including the present work, Gide would go on to acquire eight canvases by the artist and one drawing. Of these the majority, including The Lion of St Mark (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), were Venetian scenes. The only true exception, unique for its time, was The Toast. Its patterned interior, echoing, but not imitating Vuillard, and its literary source, must have appealed to the writer. After Gide’s death in 1951, his key Sickert works were repatriated by the Leicester Galleries. In her note on the picture, Browse suggests that the players on Sickert’s stage are puppet-like. ‘Fascinating’ and ‘curious’ are her words. This is partly because unlike other works, this alone portrays a very specific moment when all the ‘Wells’ players are on stage and their actions are carefully choreographed as for a publicity photograph. The painter, originally an aspiring actor, was fascinated by stagecraft, and since the vast majority of his theatre scenes are of music halls featuring solo performers, The Toast is an important exception. He had attempted play scenes before, but none was entirely successful. Had he remained in London, others of this type may well have followed. Yet the idea remained dormant until, in a late flowering in the 1930s, he depicted Edith Evans, Gwen Ffrangcon Davies and Peggy Ashcroft in scenes from Shakespeare. Oliver Brown, the founder of the Leicester Galleries and Sickert’s dealer during this period recalled that ‘to understand Sickert it has to be remembered that he was an actor in his early life …and he never forgot the theatre …he liked the dramatic moment and enjoyed creating it’. There could be no better explanation for the existence of this ‘fascinating’ canvas.