Walter Sickert
A Weak Defence, 1911, c.
Engraving on laid paper with unicorn watermark
Plate: 14.6 x 8.6 cm / 5 3/4 x 3 2/5 in
Sheet: 24 x 19 cm / 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in
Sheet: 24 x 19 cm / 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in
Second state (of two)
Copyright The Artist
A Weak Defence shows a man and a woman seated on an iron-framed bed. The figures are pushed close together in the steeply foreshortened space between the head and foot...
A Weak Defence shows a man and a woman seated on an iron-framed bed. The figures are pushed close together in the steeply foreshortened space between the head and foot of the bed. There is an interplay of hatching, crosshatching and unprinted paper, the last of which creates a brilliant highlight on the man’s leg, crossed at the knee. Along with Et Delator Es… [Bromberg 168], A Weak Defence is one of two pure engravings in the Carfax series published in 1915.
Provenance
The Fine Art Society, London, 2000The Herbert and Ann Lucas Collection, Los Angeles, May 2000
Exhibitions
London, The Leicester Galleries, An Exhibition of the Etched and Engraved Work of Walter Sickert, A.R.A. from 1884 to 1924, Jan. 1925, cat. no. 76London, The Leicester Galleries, Etchings and Engravings by Walter Richard Sickert, Oct. 1941, cat. no. 16
London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Centenary Exhibition of Etchings & Drawings by W. R. Sickert, 15 March – 14 April 1960, cat. no. 73
New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, Walter Sickert as Printmaker, 21 Feb. – 15 April 1979, cat. no. 86
London, The Fine Art Society, Walter Sickert: Paintings, Drawings & Prints, 8 May – 15 June 2000, cat. no. 16*
London, Piano Nobile, Sickert: Love, Death & Ennui. The Herbert and Ann Lucas Collection, 26 Sept. – 19 Dec. 2025, no. 36*
Literature
Ruth Bromberg, Walter Sickert: Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale University Press, 2000, cat. no. 147, p. 164 (illus.)Walter Sickert: Paintings, Drawings & Prints, exh. cat., The Fine Art Society, 2000, cat. no. 16, p. 21 (this impression illus.)*
Wendy Baron, Sickert: Paintings and Drawings, Yale University Press, 2006, cat. no. 376.5, p. 385
Delphine Lévy, Sickert: La Provocation et L'Énigma, Cohen & Cohen, 2021, p. 299, fig. 188 (illus.)
Kate Aspinall, Luke Farey and Stuart Lucas, Sickert: Love, Death & Ennui. The Herbert and Ann Lucas Collection, exh. cat., Piano Nobile, 2025, no. 36, pp. 80–81 (col. illus.)*
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