After the death of his wife Christine in October 1920, Sickert withdrew from Envermeu where they had lived together and settled for a time in Dieppe. At 22 rue Aguado, he made paintings, drawings and prints that clearly depict the same furnished room. It was filled by a bed with carved bedknobs and a large mirrored wardrobe (an armoire à glace), which was the departure point and a compositional lynchpin in several works. The composition of The New Tie is closely related to L’Armoire à Glace. It replicates the room, the mirrored wardrobe and the woman partially obscured beside it, but the scenario is reconfigured by the presence of a smartly dressed man, who stands before the mirror to inspect his new tie. It is as if the man has been pasted into the earlier picture, yet it was Sickert’s practice to arrange his compositions and study them from life. The New Tie represents the return of the man/woman theme that Sickert had pursued so concertedly in 1910–14. As with earlier compositions such as Ennui, the two figures are jammed close together in the composition so that they overlap and overlay one another as distinctive silhouettes. The silhouette of the figures is strongly contrasted by the uprights and foreshortened diagonals of the doorway and furniture.